Rashish

Instead of writing any specific thoughts on Rash, I thought I'd share this email I recieved from someone today. Click on the link above for something similar from Hautman.

Those Born 1930-1979:

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts, or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, and real butter and drank koolaid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because we were always outside playing. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. We didn't have cell phones and no one was able to reach us all day.

And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, Xboxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms . . . we had friends and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success, and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

If you are one of them . . . congratulations!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?

HEy guys whats up? I'm looking forward to reading a trilogy this summer so what are u thinking we going to read???

An Enjoyable Rash?

My skin's a little itchy from all the dry, cold weather lately and the chemicals in the swimming pool, but I don't actually have a rash. I did enjoy reading Pete Hautman's book Rash quite a bit, though. In fact, it won the Kansas City area mock Printz award in early January. It didn't win any actual awards, but it was good enough that the librarians in the area picked it as the best book of the year. No fire-breathing dragons in this one, but there are man-eating bears. And a society in which you can get sent to jail for hurting someone's feelings. It's got a really interesting look at the direction our society could be heading, a gripping story, and football. Drop by to pick up a copy if you haven't already. We meet to discuss it in eleven days. See you then.

(On a completely unrelated note, I recently read The Burning Bridge, the second book in the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan that we started with The Ruins of Gorlan. The characters are old enough now that they're out in the world doing things instead of stuck in school. It's got much more action, yet we have the depth of character development from the first book. I recommend giving it a try if you like the first one at all.)