we're going to the amoeba hop, everybody's gonna be there...

I was just browsing around Christine Lavin's website and discovered that one of her songs is now a children's book. I haven't seen it yet, but it's a very fun, sprightly song, so I hope they did it justice. Check it out. Can "Planet X" be far behind?

read new books but keep the old, one is silver...

re Anne Fine's intelligent article on rewriting books,
Read Roger writes:

"But isn't it the natural way of things that old books give way to new books? Not that people won't continue to read a mix of new and old, but what Fine is advocating is a kind of artificial life support for books that might otherwise fall out of fashion or favor. Let 'em."

Oh man, could I disagree more? The Oz books, Roger... THE OZ BOOKS! They've already fallen out of favor in the past, goodness knows how many times, and who gives a rat's ass? They're still awesome books.

I've written before about my mixed feelings about this issue--to sum up, fewer racist images in Oz books=probably good, total needless destruction of sections of Dr. Dolittle books=definitely bad--but I don't see anything needless about caring about these books from the past.
Whether rewriting books is the Right Thing to Do is still an open question--though in the case of the actual author, Fine herself, choosing to do it, what's the question?--but the books will last or not based on other merits, if we give them a chance to. It's not life support. It's equal opportunity.