Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

The most hysterical part of this tongue-in-cheek memoir of extreme parenting is when Amy Chua discovers the existence of Dog IQ rankings. Amy feels 'nauseated' when she discovers family pet Coco, a cute Samoyed, who attends Doggy Kindergarten classes - ranks only 33rd for breed intelligence ...
Amy refuses to believe Coco might just be an average dog - not fit to be part of a dog sniffing team - so she scours the internet till she finds some research which states 'the Samoyed surpasses other breeds in determination, focus and endurance...'
She writes: 'My spirits soared. For me, this was the perfect combination of qualities. If the only issue was a stubborn, disobedient streak, that was nothing I couldn't handle.'
A couple of nights later she's having yet another row with husband Jed who thinks she's pushing their two daughters too hard - the Chinese parenting method insists on hours of music each day, no sleepovers, no playdates, no TV, straight A grades - the house is full of tension, there is no breathing space...
And Amy flashes back at him: "What dreams do you have for Sophia or for Lulu? Do you ever think about that? What are you dreams for Coco?"

Charlotte's Web

It doesn't surprise me that Charlotte's Web is almost 60 years old. A children's book that deals with the dark side of farming wouldn't get past most editors now-a-days. We live in an urban world now - there are a dozen degrees of separation between fluffy farm animals and prepackaged meat.
And yet this story of a runt who is rescued from slaughter by a bloodthirsty spider who weaves 'some pig' in her web to save him - then dies after hatching her egg sac -is a literary classic. It has sold 45 million copies and been translated into 23 languages.
How reassuring to realise that innocent children can unquestioningly accept the life cycle of birth, reproduction and death - it's adults who have problems with it

There Was A Little Girl

THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.

I know this little girl. She lives in my house. Sweetest child in the world on her good days, but anaemic and easily tired and by the end of the school week, she's a venomous demon. Picks fights with her brother and sisters. Would argue a black cow was white. Yet though she tries everyone's patience I can't say I've ever been tempted to resort to the poem's conclusion:

Her mother...
she did spank her most emphatic.

An Essay on Criticism

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.
Alexander Pope
This extract from An Essay on Criticism - pinned to the door of the tack room since Tuesday- has caused anarchy at the stables. Already it's been ripped from its thumb tacks, screwed up in a ball and dumped into the trash. Then salvaged and carefully smoothed and repinned to the door of the tack room. I'm rather amused that a literary work can ignite such a violent reaction - the pen is indeed mightier than the sword!

My Naughty Little Sister

Introducing Beatrice (7), our resident literary critic.
She's reading When My Naughty Little Sister Was Good, a collection of short stories featuring a fascinating toddler, narrated by an older sister. Today's story was The Bonfire Pudding - synopsis: little sis doesn't like bangs so she stays with Granny and bakes Christmas pudding while big sis goes to the bonfire with mum.
We'd only just reached the point where Granny was tying 'a nice white apron round my sister's little middle' when Beatrice said: "How does she know?"
"How does who know what?" I asked.
And Beatrice said: "The big sister who's telling the story. How does she know what's happening at Granny's house? She's at the bonfire with mum."