When we met the accountant for our tax appointment this spring, I had to wait until Min momentarily left the room. Then I whipped out my stack of Kidsbooks receipts, the accountant frantically totalled them, and we were both smiling serenely when Min re-entered.

True story.

My latest shopping-spree impetus: the Kidsbooks blog. I had heard about this blog, but I kept forgetting to look it up until I met its author, Leslie, at Jericho Beach last week. (Yes, Jericho Beach is THE place to meet bloggers. You didn’t know?) Leslie is a fiction writer herself, and she has all sorts of great reading ideas, including this list of summer read-alouds.

I’m off to freeze my credit card in a block of ice.