If I Built a Car Revs Imagination with Rhyme

 Need a gift for a boy (or girl) who loves cars and other things that go? I'd recommend this for ages 3-8. It's a nice title for elementary classrooms, too, for use during poetry lessons. 

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Every parent knows some of the best conversations with kids happen when you're only making eye contact in the rear-view mirror. (Talk about distracted driving!)

That's the setting for Chris Van Dusen's colorful If I Built a Car. 


The imaginative young passenger-slash-designer in If I... envisions a swimming pool on wheels that flies, cooks for its occupants, and comes complete with a robot (named Robert) who drives for sleepy humans. That's just about everything I'd like to see in my next vehicle...as a jaded adult, of course, it's hard not to envision all the recall notices owners would surely receive. Sigh. Well, let's just hope the next generation of imaginative engineers are real QC-oriented. 

The rhyme works on every page, which is no surprise as the book earned the 2006 E. B. White Read Aloud Award. Van Dusen isn't quite in Mary Ann Hoberman's league when it comes to children's rhyme (but who is, really?) though  I think Car holds up quiet well next to just about all of Jack Prelutsky's stuff. Van Dusen's illustrations are excellent, whimsical yet full of movement. (Making Van Dusen a good choice to illustrate Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson series.) 


I'll finish with a tip for the frugal: This is a Scholastic book, meaning you can pick it up at many school book fairs (where a fair portion of the $ goes directly to the school and is usually used to buy more books) or through the class order forms that come home in the kids' backpacks. What's better than a great book at a great price? 



Got a good book-for-a-gift idea to share? Lemme know!

Reader beware

 Have you read about the possible/probable link between sweetened carbonated beverages and pancreatic cancer? Will you?  Probably not.

If you do read about it in a consumer magazine, however, you probably won't recognize it. The study, conducted in Singapore on more than 60,000 people over 14 years, found that those who drink more than two cans of carbonated sweetened beverages (pop) each week are more than 87% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who drink less.

Unfortunately, about all you're likely to see in a glossy monthly or your local newspaper is this: "Researchers in Singapore say there may be a connection between sweetened carbonated beverages and an increased likelihood of pancreatic cancer." Worse, you might see the results twisted into a PR campaign touting the virtues of drinking diet (artificially sweetened) pop.

Readers, please beware.