Mmmm....Make Way for Ducklings.... Lack! Mack! Nack! Pack!

Teena Marie! Not the Fugees! Turns out, it's not that helpful to google "ooh la la la."

The Story About Ping!

What's wrong with Tommy John?

I was going to say, he had a crap elbow. Luckily, he took up with a bunch of surgeons, and now, despite his not making the HOF (yet if ever), we'll always know his name. Better that than dying of a new disease, right?

(Although it creeps me out that Tommy John surgery is so common -- and that some people may be getting it just to get a better fastball, rather than because their arms have become jelly. I'm a big opponent of the idea of "improvement" surgery, and look more-than-cockeyed at the idea of stopgap medical treatment of any kind.)

I liked I See What I See which came out in the early '60s, I think. Amazon.com doesn't show it in the first several pages of searching, so I doubt it's still in print. Basically, an overly literal kid gets scared into having an imagination.

I also loved The ice-cream cone coot, And other rare birds by Arnold Lobel. And when I read it to a roommate's toddler niece she seemed to like it as well.

Better that than dying of a new disease, right?

Right. Tommy John surgery is a far better fate than Lou Gehrig's disease.

There's a Nightmare in My Closet for a little older age range. (sorry if has already been mentioned.)

I wanted my own monster SO BAD.

One of my kids was really, really scared by A Nightmare In My Closet. Parenthood is hard.

Oh! Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and Chicken Soup with Rice and there's one about wicked oni, but I can't recall the title.

I'm going to be recalling my favorite childrens books at random times for the next month....

Any good suggestions? I'll take toddler through early reader. I think my mom is making him a bookcase.

Early board books Emmett liked: Goodnight Gorilla, Jamberries, Is Your Mama A Llama?, the Ruth Wise Brown ouevre. He also loved Curious George books quite a lot, though they seem to be in ill repute now. I don't know how you can turn down a book that advocates monkeys who get high on ether.

Rice's numbers do drop off precipitiously. Also, he suffers (as most 80s hitters do) from the advent of the steroid era, which makes 30 Home Run seasons look nugatory. There was a time when only the four or five strongest guys in baseball could hit an opposite field home run. Nowadays any flyweight utility player can do it. Anyway, you need to compare Rice's slugging against his peers to really get how dominant he was.

Mickey in the Night Kitchen!

Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cakes and nothing's the matter!