The festival of lights has brought us...

more Spiderwick Chronicles
The Chronicles of Spiderwick: A Grand Tour of the Enchanted World, Navigated by Thimbletack".

The second Harry Potter. My verdict is still out on whether we should be reading this to Max, age 6. But he loves the story, and is following it, enthralled. And I must admit it is fun to read aloud. I also wonder what other parents think about what is acceptable book to read, or to watch. I ask this because I took Max to his daycare the other day (he had a snow day, and I wanted to get some work done) and the kids (3 boys, between age 5 and 7) were watching Transformers, rated PG-13 for violence and sexual content. Two of the boys who were watching this movie had brought it from home, and when I said I was uncomfortable with my 6 year old watching a pg-13 movie with so much violence, I felt like an over-protective freak. Do all little kids watch things like that? Are Lisa and I the only parents (who aren't evangelical home-schoolers) who are so compulsive about what our kid watches?

So after that little tirade... Lisa got me the new David Isay book: Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project.

And our friends got Max (us) a great Lemony Snicket find: The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story. This cracked me up!

And I'm getting Lisa the book: How Doctors Think. About (how intuitive is this) how doctors think.

Mom gave me The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And I am so looking forward to it.

I'm sure we had other book related gifts, but I can't remember what they are.