It’s Girl Scout cookie season, and that means we get to talk to all sorts of Girl Scout alums about their experience selling cookies back in the day. This week, we met someone who claimed that Thin Mints are not only one of the most popular types of Girl Scout cookies, they’re also one of the oldest. So of course, we had to know: Were Thin Mints really only the third Girl Scout cookie to be introduced?
In her book, Reading like a Writer, Francine Prose casually states that it’s bad luck to have peacock feathers in the house. I’d never heard that before. So of course, I wanted to know: do peacock feathers bring bad luck?
The holidays have finally struck here at Caterpickles Central. I wasn’t entirely sure it was going to happen this year, seeing as how there are still flowers blooming outside our front door, but I chaperoned The Ten-Year-Old’s field trip to see The Nutcracker last week, and now I’ve got questions about sugar plums dancing in my head. What is a sugar plum, and why does it get its own fairy?
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.
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?
One afternoon, while we were watching old episodes of Murdoch Mysteries, The Ten-Year-Old had her mind blown by a stray comment from Constable George Crabtree. “Did you know that a cow invented the doughnut?” Crabtree asks Detective Murdoch at one point in the investigation. Curiosity trumps TV, even in the summer, so The Ten-Year-Old immediately stopped the action. “Mommyo, is that true? Did a cow really invent the doughnut?”
Budding novelists, even 10-year-old ones, have to research all sorts of questions online. In today’s post, I tell you where to find images of cars built before 1893.
This week, The Ten-Year-Old reviews Muse Magazine by Cricket Media and The Secret Knowledge of Grown-ups by David Wisniewski.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down from the time he was 39, so used a wheelchair in private settings. He felt his disability was a disadvantage for his political career, however, so trained himself to walk using a cane and iron braces. Only 3 pictures of him in a wheelchair exist.
The Art for Children Series, now sadly out of print, includes 16 books on major artists across the spectrum, including Rembrandt, Remington, Van Gogh, da Vinci, Gauguin, Chagall, and Picasso.
CATERPICKLES 