not a weird-ass picture book, but...?

I need a new book phrase... MotherReader? Bueller? I got a book from the library called One Lonely Sea Horse, which has illustrations of sea creatures created from fruits and vegetables. Very cute, needless to say--how can you not love dolphins made out of bananas? But the text...

"Six playful dolphins then arrived.
'Hey, Bea!' they called. 'Let's leap and dive!'"

And that's probably one of the better ones.

You know, they're not even trying. It's like someone said, this book will sell on the pictures, who the hell cares what it sounds like?

This poor mom who has to read the thing, that's who.

And I can only imagine how the picture book writers who slave over rhymes and rhythm and scansion grind their teeth over these.

sppeaking of Gossamer

Lois Lowry has blogged a rather sad (I dare not say "touching") piece about having to change the original title of Gossamer.

top three words I wish romance authors would eliminate from their vocabularies

grunted

thatch

mounds

(shudder)