Fostering curiosity in kids (and their parents) since 2011

Posts by Shala Howell

“Has anyone ever committed a robbery while armed with a cow?”

When she was ten, my daughter founded a detective agency with a crimson dragon named Cherry Lane. Their first client was another dragon who was accused of committing armed robbery using a cow. The Ten-Year-Old has been tasked with researching the various precedents associated with the case. “Mommyo, has anyone ever committed a robbery while armed with a cow?” Turns out, cows make surprisingly good weapons.

“Did Isaac Newton invent the cat door?”

During a recent bout of Family Togetherness While Reading Different Books Time, my ten-year-old daughter had her mind blown by a passage in Amazing Cat Facts. “Whoa, guys, it says here that Isaac Newton invented the cat door.” For once, I was dubious. So I set aside my book and surreptitiously double-checked the story on my iPhone. Did Isaac Newton really invent the cat door?

What’s The Ten-Year-Old reading this week?

This week, The Ten-Year-Old dives into summer with a book of scary (but not too scary) stories to tell around a campfire. Hal Johnson’s Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods echoes an America gone by, when the woods were large and full of shadows for unknown beasts to lurk in.

Where’s my Caterpickles?

The Ten-Year-Old was lecturing me the other day about how I haven’t answered her question about which modern instrument evolved from the sackbut yet. She wanted to know what I’d been doing instead, and when I told her I’d been writing a book, said, “Mommyo, you should let everyone else know that, too.”