I spent Sunday evening with the Chronicle Crusaders, a grade four book club at Christianne’s Lyceum. I think the goal of the evening was to answer any questions they had after reading 50 Poisonous Questions. But wow — I learned a lot. For example:

• When she heard my favorite book ever is A Wrinkle in Time, one crusader suggested When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. It’s now on my get-it-for-me-quick list at the library.

• Christianne herself eats her apples AND their seeds, so the whole group was quite concerned about her keeling over during the meeting. It’s a little difficult to find information about just how many apple seeds one would have to ingest to get cyanide poisoning, but it looks like she’d have to start eating a pile of them each day, preferably chewing the seeds. Whew…

• Apo means away. You’d think I would have known this before, because it’s in my book. Right there on the page about bees and aposematic coloration. But you know, that darned question on the poisonous crossword puzzle must have taken me 10 minutes to answer. And let’s not even talk about my Pictionary skills…

• I had no idea there was such raging concern about lead in red lipstick. The bright red kind, which we blondes aren’t too keen on anyway. Reports on this lead are looking sketchy, though. There are probably a billion other things we should be worried about in our cosmetics, but the red-lead connection is not necessarily one of them. Thank goodness. Because between earthquakes, the sun exploding, and phthalates, who needs another ulcer?

Thanks for a great visit, Crusaders!