* College visiting and associated angsting.

* Did you know that you can buy a 1959 children’s book by the founder of the American Nazi Party on Amazon? You can! I reviewed it. (Spoiler alert: The author does not Jews or African-Americans!)

* A book of fabulous celebrity portraits made of detritus! My fave is Jerry Seinfeld made of cereal. I understood that reference (even though I didn’t watch Seinfeld, don’t @ me).

* 17 fun facts about the Bowery, from a book that scores higher than 17 in historical fascinating-ness. 

* A tribute to wonderful children’s non-fiction book author Russell Freedman, and a review of his wonderful final book. 

* Aaaaaaand I hate writing blech reviews. This board book is so well-meaning, and so bad. 

* This piece in today’s NYT does a great job illustrating why high-stakes standardized tests are so bad. It’s not just that they have too much power; it’s that the questions are often semi-coherent. Look, the woman who WROTE THE BOOK on grammar AND a Harvard-educated lawyer (someone who, y’know, understands precise language) both got a question wrong. My 10th grade English teacher ordered me on FB to answer the question (before I’d read the article) and I always do whatever she tells me, and I answered D, saying it was OBVIOUSLY WRONG because it assumed knowledge that wasn’t given, but hey, guess what, the right answer was D, and I only got it right because I was so sure I was wrong. 

* Speaking of wrong, we have made three (3) trips to Economy Candy in the last three (3) weeks to buy Elite Popping Milk Chocolate Bars. They are SO FREAKING GOOD and joyful to ingest. I am not a compensated spokesmodel. Just a fan.