I'm planned to read Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City anyhow, but it got moved up in the stack due to it being the book club pick for December. Being at home sick all of Thanksgiving weekend meant lots of sleep, but also a fair bit of reading. I finished it on Friday. Gory and interesting at the same time. It made me realize how long it's been since I've been in Chicago, and how little of the city I really got to know living in the suburbs for 6 years.

E.D. Hirsh, jr's Cultural Literacy is one of those books I'd had floating around for song long that I don't remember when or where I bought it. I think a library book sale though. I'd run across, in something else I read recently, the idea that children should learn to read by using books that have content rather than books that are created just for the express purpose to associating marks on a page with spoken words. I have a feeling that would work well for some people, but might make some people end up even less literate then they are now. I've never studied education or child psychology though, so what do I know.
posted by Kristin Buxton at 9:01 PM