Bruce Coville Interviewed at Gizmodo...Underestimating Kids...4th Grader Recommends

Author Bruce Coville lands at Gizmodo: The Gadget Guide. My Teacher Is an Alien, first published almost twenty years ago, and the rest of the series sound like books for the boy in the back seat who asked yesterday, "Mom, what's faster? The speed of light or the speed of sound?" Zip over to "My Favorite Childhood Sci-Fi Author Fries My Brain," by Mark Wilson, at Gizmodo. Part I, Part II

Meanwhile Anecdotal Evidence makes a less-than-satisfactory visit to his sons' school library.

I left the library suspecting we underestimate the capacity of children to embrace a challenge, learn from it and wish to seek another. When we over-simplify and sugarcoat, kids learn to expect even less of themselves, and so we perpetuate a quiet, passive dumbness – ripe for video games and television.

Last, but certainly not least, a fourth-grade girl recommended Lois Lowry's novel Gossamer to me. "It's the best book I've ever read." When you get a suggestion like that, you've gotta run with it.