It's called a budget.

Sometimes something annoys me and I can't stop thinking about it. I have to tell someone about it. That's part of why I started this blog (btw, I'm not dead!), so I'd have 'someone' to tell. If you're good at putting 2 and 2 together, you may have guessed I have someone to tell all that stuff to now :) and don't have much reason to write here. Except today, I can't stop rehearsing telling him about this annoying thing and I will only see CR briefly tonight and don't want to waste breathe on this stupid thing, and I can't tell Honu-Girl (because she is annoyed about the same thing and doesn't need to hear more of my ramblings on the matter and definitely doesn't need the background...although she'll probably read this), but I can't stop rehearsing what I'd say...So, y'all are the lucky winners of the totality of my thoughts on the matter at hand - Adopt-A-School and money.

A little background to this week's drama: My employer (state science agency) has been an AAS partner for about 20 years. Our current coordinator has been doing it for about 17 years. (I've been working here for 5.5 years.) To fund AAS activities apparently they used to do bake sales, t-shirt sales, etc and passing the hat until someone came up with the idea of a golf tournament to fund all the educational outreach for the agency. Somewhere along the way a bank account was set up to handle the 'education fund' monies. Most of the funds went to AAS activities, as I understand it, but some money was donated to water festivals and a few other similar events. As I understand it, the agency became AAS partners to support Earth Science education, in particular (which is why we partnered with a middle school), but not to the exclusion of activities to support all education, teachers, and students. A bone of contintion between the education committee and the AAS coordinator was how she spent money - most of the committee favored trying to target actual educational things (equipment, books, fieldtrips), she likes to do a lot of prize type stuff (snacks during testing week, good behavior rewards (candy), lunch for the teachers). No one has a problem with rewards and treats but there is only so much money to go around.

Last summer one of our agency lawyers noticed all of this and realized this was illegal, primarily the money part. Generally state agencies can't go out and under their name seek charitable donations, at least not ours (maybe some can, idk). This was decreed right before the golf tournament. There was some chaos, then the geological society stepped up and offered to handle the money, become a co-AAS partner. Well, the chaos sort of continued through the summer as the old bank account was closed, money handed over, etc. At the beginning of the school year there wasn't a budget to hand the AAS coordinator, the society officers didn't know how much had been spent in the past, how much to expect to be spent this year, or have a firm number for the amount that could be spent. (That last was easy to take care of, it just hadn't been figured.) And in the midst of this a second school had been added to our AAS partnership, which upped the amount spent by 150% or so.

This first half of the school year AAS-coordinator would spend money then turn in receipts to the treasurer and get reimbursed. Few, if any, questions asked. After a while the treasurer started to wonder when, if ever, he was suppose to say no - so the officers got together, looked at the money spent, the money raised in the previous golf tournament, other money potentially available, and what else might education money might be spent on. They also asked the AAS-coordinator to put together a budget showing what she wanted to do for the second half of the year .(I can' t remember if there were two meetings, or a bunch of emails and one meeting) After the discussion the AAS-coordinator was told how much was available to be spent in the second half of the year and which activities were thought to be key to our goals (science education or at least directly educational), but the final decisions on how to spend the money fell to her.

Yesterday afternoon, I was included in a reply (as one of the society officers*) to an email about an Earth Day contest at one of the schools that need judges and prizes. It appears in the email that the AAS-coordinator is also asking about additional funds (although maybe she's just mentioning that she'll be buying prizes already covered in her existing budget). The society president states he can't attend but maybe someone else can go and asks the treasurer if there's still outreach money available. Emails go back and forth, up shot is there's some money and clearly this is the kind of thing we really want to support. This morning we get an email from the AAS-coordinator about how AAS isn't just something 'she' wants to do, it started before she was hired, all our bosses since then have affirmed the commitment, she doesn't appreciate others telling her what she can spend money on, she can't plan if she isn't sure there'll be money to cover activities,...and some more stuff along those lines. Oh, and suggesting we need to meet with everyone involved to discuss all this.After this email, several of us on this hall were sputtering, semi-incoherent about it. The Pres replied reminding her why the society took over the funds, that money is not unlimited, and we gave her a budget - stick to it.

My thought: We gave her a budget, she should know if there are funds left to do this. If it is indeed something the school decided to do recently and she's asking for additional money to cover prizes (as it appeared in her email) then she needs to recognize that there might not be any more money. Personally, if it's between feeding the teachers lunch (teacher appreciation lunch is apparently the only other thing this school year) and giving prizes for the Earth Day contest, I'd go with the prizes. I think most teachers would say reward academic and creative effort before you feed us - it's nice to be appreciated but we're all here to teach and encourage the kids. And if she didn't spend so much money on candy for the students maybe she could spend money on stuff that is actually educational.

Well, I feel better now.


*I got roped into being the society newsletter editor. Go me.

Neato

Cool stuff! Go check it out.

That's about as articulate as I can manage today.

Confession Time

So, remember that boy (CR) that I was stressing out over back before Christmas? Well, I pretty sure he likes me. We've been hanging out together fairly regularly (except the week he had a killer cold) this month. Things are moving slowly, and I'm ok with that - we aren't spring chickens and both have ex-fiancés*. But I have a confession, and I don't know if I should share it with him yet or not - I've been having rather naughty thoughts about him all day today. I don't want to freak him out - we've kissed but we haven't played any tonsil hockey - and I'm sitting here thinking distractingly naughty thoughts about him, since late yesterday evening.

So if you walk past my office and I'm smiling and blushing while staring off into space, you'll know why.



*When plural is it the masculine spelling? Should I say fiancé(e)s? Since I had a fiancé and he had a fiancée. Can a former English major or some one who knows French speak up?

Attitude Adjustment Needed

Last night while having dinner with CR, we briefly discussed alcohol drinking limits, teen drinking, etc. (very briefly, mostly in the context of our former teaching careers). I just checked and I don't seem to have ever written about this here before, so I thought I'd let y'all know my thoughts on this topic.

I don't think strict prohibition until the age of 21 works well. I think there's some allure of the forbidden (particularly with teens) but more importantly makes it hard for families to teach teens to drink responsibly. A progressive introduction more like the German's* have makes more sense to me. The parent of a young teen (14?) can order an alcoholic beverage for their child at a restaurant. (I doubt anyone requires documentation for the age of the child or the exact legal relationship of the adult and teen, I assume it's kind of at the discretion of the server/manager/...). Later (age 16 perhaps?) a teen can order alcoholic beverages as long as there is an adult in the party, again at a restaurant or café. At 18 one is an adult and has all the privileges thereof.

But more important than the laws are attitudes and modeling.(Please note I'm not an expert in the field, have not raised any children,...) If parents (and the rest of the family) model responsible behavior and have less of an 'all or nothing' attitude then the kids are less likely to binge drink. Notice I say "less likely" not "won't" because nothing, short of the absence of all alcohol, can completely eliminate binge drinking. Teens are, on average, impulsive, poor judges of risk, and susceptible to peer pressure - these three things together don't make teenagers the best decision makers. On the other hand they aren't completely imbecilic robots who do everything their friends say either. I think if parents drink responsibly around their kids, show a dislike for excessive drinking and talk about it, be honest about their own youthful excesses, and even let kids taste drinks if they want (did you like beer the first time you drank it?), the children will grow up with a healthier attitude toward alcohol. Research even bears this out.

I read an article (or heard a story on NPR) about a study⁺ that looked at first-generation Irish- and Italian-American families (parent's born in old country, kids born and raised in US). In general the Irish-American families practiced strict prohibition^ until one 18 years old; alcohol was often drunk outside the home; and drinking to drunkeness was accectable. In the Italian-American households children were given age-appropriately sized glasses of wine with dinner, alcohol was mostly drunk with the meal; and excessive drinking was not socially accectable. The researchers followed the children in these families into adulthood and the Italian-Americans were less likely to binge drink as teens and young adults and had a lower incidence of alcoholism than the Irish-Americans.

There will always be teens who get wasted every Friday night but maybe if we change our attitudes about alcohol and teens then it could be fewer?



*At least as I remember from discussions in class 15 yrs ago. And, no, I don't know about any other European nation's laws.
⁺If I had any idea where I'd read about this I'd link to it but I read the article at least 6 months ago.
^except for communion wine for the RCers, of course

Present from the Dog

or dogs?

But first - the laundry room lizard reading about physics.


If you are of a weak constitution, you may want to skip rest of this post and take a look at these instead.






I'm not sure where it came from but Honey or some other dog/dogs Wednesday night brought me this:


I'm pretty sure a neighbor had been butchering this little guy and left the head and spine, carelessly, where dogs could get to it. From the tip of the nose to the hip bone he's maybe 5 feet long.



The head is about 14-16" long. I tossed him into the woods Thursday by Sunday it had been pulled across the yard and the skin on the head was gone. I'm sparing y'all that sight. The ribs are gone now, too.



He must have had some kind of rack because it was hatched off.



Luckily it's barely gotten above freezing this past 5 week so he's not rotting terribly fast and the there aren't many flies. Hopefully Dad will find him and toss him in the brush today, otherwise I'll have to go out when I get home and do it in the dark.

Pet Pictures

Because really what else do you want to see while surfing pre-New Year's intoxication?

Did I post Me and My Shadow yet? Well, either way, it's so cute.



Honey got How to Teach Physics to Your Dog for Christmas but Irish got a hold of it first.



I think Irish is trying to steal the book from Honey by scent marking it here.

Here's Honey reading it:


Taking a break to ponder bunnies made of cheese:


Here she's pouting because I took the book away.


I'm anxiously awaiting my turn at reading the book. :)

Learning to Ride

No one's at work again today but I'm feeling more philosophical than crazy today. I'm listening/watching to an old Bones ep ("The Woman in the Car"). At one point Booth and Brennan are watching a video of a kid learning to ride a bike. Dad is a little nervous (his baby is growing up), kid is excited, Mom is worried. The mom keeps saying things like "Be carefull" and "don't let go" while the kid is saying "I can do it!" As the kid goes wobbling down the sidewalk, Mom says to Dad "How do we get him back?"

It occured to me that you never 'get them back' (kids that is) you just run along beside as long as possible. (note: I don't have any kids, just a much younger sister.) Parents (and older sisters) always want to hold on to their child, keep him or her at whatever age*. The job of a parent isn't to continue to hold on to the bike seat until all danger has passed. The job of a parent is to run along beside your child until you can't keep up anymore.


*Well, maybe not 11. Or 13, 15, and 17. I have a friend, who's now 25, that I've none since she was 11. The odd teenage years were not good.

Pink Rose = Friendship?

So, how's everyone? Have(ing) a nice Christmas (or whatever you celebrate)? I'm ok, except for the raging neuroses.

I guess you saw in my last post I went on a blind date. Since then we've been to lunch twice, he came to my church for our Christmas choir thing, I went to the church he attend here's Christmas choir program with a birthday dinner for our mutual friend before hand, and a random dinner* with our mutual friend, and one dinner and a movie. By my count that's 5 dates, more than I've been on in the last ten years.

All this romantic attention has my inner voices in overdrive - Am I sending the right signals? Bad body language habits! Are the signals confusing? Don't cross your arms! Smile. (not hard to do in his company) Am I sending any signals? Make eye contact. Don't ramble...- you get the picture.

Tuesday night when he walked me to my door I practically stood in it rather than let him come in. Not because I actually didn't want him to come in but because I was trying to figure out if it was too late to invite him in for coffee/tea/hot cocoa (I had to go to work the next morning) and wondering if he was going to hug me. Then he's leaning in for a hug and I'm thinking "kiss? on lips or cheek? Should I give him a peck on the cheek? hmm, his head hits right at my shoulder. Kiss now? Crap, missed my chance." Then Wednesday after the kind of random dinner I got a one-arm, diagonal, friend-hug, which starting me worrying if that meant something or not.

I've been feeling so much better the last year or so. Comfortable in my own skin, more confident, (usually) feeling competent at work, all that good stuff. This week I've gone back and forth between embarrassingly giddy because maybe a boy likes me to being terrified that I'll somehow screw this up (whatever 'this' becomes) to telling myself I'm being silly because I've known him less than a month. Basically I feel a bit like I'm 15 again. I suck at dating. Part of me wants to tell him that I haven't dated much (understatement of the year?), I'm not good at 'reading' people, etc while the rest of me shouts that bit down with "we don't want to freak him out"**, and one small part says "relax, deep breaths, you've only know him a few weeks, it will be OK, breathe damn it!"

I think the worst is those inner voices have started up their positive feedback loop of negativity, again. The loop gets interrupted when I get unambiguously good signals, like an email saying hi. (If it's not on the level of hitting me over the head with a club and dragging me back to his cave, it is up for interpretation.) Or if I distract myself, which is hard to do this time of year at work.



*Our mutual friend is the grad student who does fieldwork with me, RA. I was dropping RA off after field work about 5 and he'd invited me to eat with them, then mention CR would be there... I'm hoping CR didn't think it was weird I showed up.

**God help me if he finds this blog - he'll think I'm completely insane. Maybe I should have picked more anonymous screen name, made this a more truly anonymous blog. Too late now.

A question and a boast

First off, is there something about Ig/Met Pet Question that makes it particularly spam worthy? I've been getting at a Japanese spam comment about one a day for a week now.

Secondly, I went from this (geologist office chic):


to this (over dressed for blind double date):


in 46 minutes last Friday*. Well, slightly less time actually, 46 minutes is the difference between the time stamps on the photos. I was only 10 minutes late and half of that was because I had to stop at the ATM.

I had fun. He, I'm told, had a good time and wants my number (since he didn't ask for it before I left, despite having an entire Uno game's worth of warning. But then it was really late and we were all getting tired.). Also I got to see our big snow falling. (It didn't stick here but did in Birmingham, I'm told.)


*I also went from having a dog excited to have Mom home to one pouting on my bed because Mom was abandoning her for the evening. That's why she's not in the second picture. :)

Please Note:

As I mentioned the other day I've turned on comment moderation for older posts. (I've had a handful of spam comments.) I'd like to point out that I will probably reject any comments not in English without even trying to figure out what it they says*.

Thank you.

BTW, the spambot trying to comment in Japanses on Ig/Met Pet Question - please go away.


*grammar fixed now

Thanks

[quick editorial note: I turned comment moderation on for old posts but forgot to set Blogger to email me when there was a comment needing moderation. Oops. Sorry if you're the commenter who sat waiting so long.]

In the spirit of Thanksgiving last week and today being World AIDS Day I wanted to thank the doctors, nurses, and support staff (and researchers?) at UAB's Family Clinic (or whatever it's called now). When Nettie was born (and the months leading up to then), my parents, brother, the rest of my family and I (and possibly her bio-mom, but how would anyone know?) were worried and unsure about her chances of being born healthy and getting to grow up to be the wonderful pre-teen she is today, much less to be the beautiful young woman she'll be in a few more years.*

Scientific American had a special issue devoted to HIV/AIDS right about the time we found out my (now former) SIL was HIV positive. That helped a lot. We had some current information all in one place, and it was understandable. It also helped with the OB, because while I'm sure he was a wonderful doc, he didn't start out knowing much about what could be done to help the baby's chances of being HIV negative; my brother could go in with good information to get the OB looking into it.

After the birth though we were a bit in the dark again; SA had articles on pregnancy and birth and HIV infection in babies/children but, as I recall, nothing on when you know an infant isn't infected. This is when the Family clinic came in and were just wonderful. (Not all of our experiences at Children's were wonderful, or even good, but that wasn't FC's fault.) The doctors and nurses were not only good at doctoring but had good bedside manner and were willing to answer any questions we had; the social worker, too. (She even gave Mom and me meal vouchers but we didn't get to use them -that was the Day From Hell.)

The Family Clinic is (or was 10 years ago) a group from UAB and had "clinic" at Children's Hospital in Birmingham one day a week (Montgomery and Huntsville 2 other days a week, iirc). Their goal was to treat every HIV positive child (and HIV exposed infants) and, when needed, the parents of those children in the state. (A lofty goal and one I'm sure they fell short on - a lot of people would have trouble getting to the hospitals). They also did research on HIV in infants and children. They had drug protocols, testing schedules, and stats. Just learning the statistics on when babies test positive and hearing that Nettie, at 8 days old, didn't have any of the common early signs of infection helped put us at ease. Or at least helped us not worry TOO much. And a year and a half later, knowing that she didn't have to be tested any more, was very nice confirmation that our beautiful healthy little girl was going to stay that way.

Now if we could somehow skip the middle school years, everything would be perfect.


*What? How? When? She was just a little baby, like, yesterday!

Ig/Met Pet question.

Callan's post on his new "granite" counter top reminded me of a post I meant to do while in Portland. I didn't have my camera so I had to wait until I got home, and I just drew a quick sketch of the gorgeous "granite" that adorned my bathroom at the Paramount. My petrology class was a while ago and I spend most of my time looking at the electrical properties of sedimentary rocks, so other than metamorphic I didn't get any further with this:


The biotite books in the groundmass (for lack of a better term) weren't that aligned (i.e. no preferred orientation), I was just lazy in Illustrator. The white space in the groundmass was mostly quartz with plag. The ground mass was medium to dark grey overall. The large feldspar clasts were between approximately .5"-1.25" (1 - 3cm, or nickel to Kennedy half-dollar); some had rings of biotite in them and/or inclusions of biotite, quartz, and rarely plag. A couple had rings of quartz inclusions - like an overgrowth of quartz followed by regrowth of feldspar; a few were almost complete overgrown by quartz.

So anyone know what it was?

"It's a terrible thing when gneiss is taken for granite"
-J.C. Pashin (and probably others)*

* Speaking of puns, check out Callan's Halloween costume

Why do I bother?

2 dances/hour, $1.20/dance, 1 out of every 6 songs, or 5 miles (roundtrip)/dance* - That's how tonight's dance works out. Still one dance better than the last TBDC dance. I have lots of fun at class, because I actually dance. I don't have much fun sitting by myself at a table watching everyone else dance.

I sit forward in my chair, no slouching or arms crossed over my chest; I sway/seat dance to the music; I make eye contact with people; I don't sit at the far end of the table in the dark - so why don't I get asked to dance? I'm starting to think it's the same reason I don't get asked out on dates(other than an apparent dearth of single, age appropriate men) - something just wrong with me. What I don't know, but small children don't like me, store clerks ignore me, and guys don't ask me to dance.




*this is not counting the line dances: Electric Slide, Peabody, or Cupid Shuffle

50/50?

Short Geologist asked about male/female ratios where we work. My answer was going to be a bit long, so I'm making a whole post.

At the engineering consulting firm (where I did UST and SWPA work) I was one of 4 women "professionals" (a geologist, an engineer, a chemist, and an environmental scientist), so total for "professionals" was about 4:12; there were far more women then men in the office but the rest were drafters, secretaries, personnel manager, office manager, book keeper... As far as I know there were no women on the survey crews (those crews probably brought the total male/female back up to 50/50).

Back in grad school the ratio was close to 40:60ish, a few more males than females (students only).

Where I am now there are 9 female geologist and chemists (iirc, she actually does programming for us) and 50 male geologists, biologists, and engineers. My division is 3:4 and our building (next door to most of the Survey) is 4:9, plus one volunteer lady geologist*. When I counted up my co-workers from the phone list I was kind of surprised there were actually that few women scientists. It always seems like there are more women here but in my mind I'm probably including all the support staff (accounting, personnel,...), which is mostly female. Lots of the men work either for the OGB or on the 3rd floor where I rarely go and so usually only see all those folks at holiday luncheons.

I've noticed a difference in conference attendance. When I went to the American Association of Petroleum Geologist's meeting there were definitely more men than women but at the Geological Society of America meetings I've been to (all 2 of them) it was more even. There's a small (200 people?) symposium here every spring on coalbed methane and shale gas. When I was a student my (now) boss' wife and I would be among the very few women there. (No line at the bathrooms!) now the numbers of women are creeping up. That meeting is probably still in the 25:75 range. The field trip my boss runs for that meeting is the only time I've seen men crash the ladies bathroom (1-holers at a gas station). Not uncommon for the van drivers and I to be the only women.

At the consulting job I spent most of my time in the office writing up other's reports because the guy (an engineer, who once described a sand as "well sorted, fine to coarse grained") could help our drill crew lift augers, 70lb bags of sack-crete, etc. and all I 'could' do was describe the soil. The only time I really was uncomfortable about being a lady geologist was the job with the driller who hit on me, obnoxiously, for 3 days straight. My (then) boss and his mostly thought it was funny and were laying bets as to when I'd slug the jerk. (It's surprising he managed to get the hole straight because he spent almost all of his time looking at me - and I'm not terribly attractive in field clothes and a hardhat.)

Male/female ratios aren't something I've ever worried a whole lot about. That is partly due to the fact that I've had good role models, also, with 5 brothers it doesn't bother me to be "one of the guys". Besides, I have it so much easier than it used to be. My boss' wife (a geologist) was once denied a job because they didn't have a ladies room in the building. At that time, she had a job where she had a 10 minute walk to the closest ladies room.


*with only 2 one-holers, one non-climate controlled, for us ladies!

Baby Pictures!

Because I know the whole wide internets is dying to see pictures of my grand-nephew:




I'd like to take this oppotunity to point out how unfair it is that my brothers (except the half bald one) and nephews have better hair than Kate, Anna, and I. (Ok, John and Pat can keep the receeding at the temples bit.) Also I can't remember the others, but Scott and Nathan have about the best eyelashes I've ever seen - it's just not fair. I'll forgive Maddox.

Congratulations...

...to my nephew and his wife (Scott and Lauren): Maddox Scott, 7lbs 2 oz, born today.

I'm sending them all my good thoughts and wishing them lots of sleep.

A note to the airlines

Just a quick note from Portland.

My flights here were fine, but requiring anyone to be anywhere before 6am is just wrong. There should be special check-in procedures or something for any flight before 7. At least I spent the night at my brother's in Trussville, getting up at 4:15 is WAY better than leaving the house at 4:15. (My SIL is also in Portland this week for work, she had to meet a coworker at 4 for a 6:50ish flight. The co-worker had to leave home at least by 3:30!)

Also, in light of the 3-1-1 policy, if you strand someone somewhere try and make sure the hotel has complementary shampoo. I'm looking at you US Air in Charlotte. (referencing last weeks trip) Because of the liquids restrictions some of us don't always bother to carry shampoo, particularly on short trips.

More badges!

(I promise I'll get to the rest of the banned book list, even if it's not Banned Book Week, eventually.)

Look Knitting Scouts! I can add to my Science Scout badges knitting badges. Maybe.

I don't have much contact with "the media" so I don't know if I actually qualify for the primary badge (Proselytize Knitting). I did help a friend by crochet supplies because she wanted to start up again.

I "will impress you with my math prowess" (level I) - knitting math is generally straight forward - even if I usually don't worry about gauge (haven't knit any sweaters, etc. yet). I just knit until it's the size I want. But my calculations for flat-knit circles work in garter stitch at least. (Does the use of trig functions move me up to level 1.5?)
I definitely qualify for "Knit Items With No Conceivable Practical Application", as my "reds bag" is an almost unusable size and shape but cute.

In other knitting news: I finally wove in the ends on 2 wash cloths and 3 burp cloths that I started on in June. They even got washed last night so I might be able to give them to my new-Dad coworker this week. I bought some pretty wool a few weeks ago and will start knitting a scarf for my niece that I see in a couple weeks. (3 plane rides before I see her should be plenty of time) And after that I'm going to start a baby blanket for my grand-nephew; it should be done by Christmas.

BTW did I pick up my "rock licker" badge? (It's lunch time and I'm too lazy to go back and check.)

Needles (the good kind)

I'm shamelessly selling my post for the chance at knitting needles. Knit Purl Gurl is giving away this lovely set of interchangeable needles.

In other knitting news I'm trying to decide if a 36" x 36" blanket is going to use a gazillion yards of yarn or something reasonable. I've been thinking about and looking at baby blanket patterns. Then last night, for kicks, I grabbed 3 remnants of some balls of Lily Sugar'n Cream and knit it up on a pair of 15s in garter stitch. Muddy colors (they were rather random remnants) but really squishy soft. I need to weigh my little 4X4 swatch. There should be postage scale around here somewhere.

Read, Read a Book, Read a Book Right Now*

Preferably a banned book, as it is Banned Books Week. I don't know which books I have on my shelf and which I don't so instead of following Sarah's example I'll examine the lists of most challenged/banned books from 2001-2008. Of those I've read:

Captain Underpants
Bridge to Terabithia
Julie of the Wolves
His Dark Materials series
Harry Potter series
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Of Mice and Men
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Color Purple

I've put these in approximate age of readers. Captain Underpants is a beginning chapter book, I think, or read to your K-1st grader. I saw it was challenged for being "unsuited for age group" - well, I don't know about the people who challenged it but Mom and Nettie had the best time ever reading it together. It's the only one on the list I haven't read all of (OK, also haven't read Amber Spyglass, yet) but I think from the bits I have read/heard that it is perfect for the age group. Potty humor and burping is right up an average 6-9 yr old's alley, parent's might not always appreciate it but their kids love it. Mom and Nettie laughed the whole time.

The next three are (my impression) for late-elementary schoolers. I read Bridge to Terabithia and Julie of the Wolves in 6th grade, both for discussion/book reports. I'll admit that 6th grade was a while ago, so my memory may not be perfect but violence? I don't remember any particular violence in either. In BtT the kids have a fantasy world with battles against imaginary foes - you can't have kings and queens without dragons - but, in my mind, that's different than 'real' violence. It wasn't gratuitous or glorified. In JotW, Julie's village hunts, the wolf pack she joins hunts, but I can't for the life of me come up with any other potential violence to complain about. Maybe I've forgotten a bunch in the intervening 20 years? IDK, IDU either.

His Dark Materials is somewhat anti-church (in my reading really more anti-establishment or anti-dogma than anti-Christianity despite, perhaps, the author's intent) and this would make it a target of many book banners. Don't want the kiddos asking too many questions. Yeah, there's some violence but not gory and how do you have epic battles with out some violence? How many kids are going to read a trilogy that doesn't involve a major world changing conflict? And how many of those world changing conflicts are going to not involve a war? Yeah, you can do it, but the central conflict of the story needs to grab kids - war grabs kids (and adults).

It seems to me that the Harry Potter series starts as a mid- to late-elementary (3-5th grade) reading and ends as intermediate school reading (7-8th). I suspect a lot of the challenges to Harry Potter are because of the magic - inherently anti-church, if you're afraid of questions. My sister has a friend who isn't allowed to read the books or watch the movies because of this (but can watch Mary Poppins, go figure.). Yeah, there's violence. Violence with consequences and not without reason (at least for the good guys). Again the good guys are fighting evil, and Harry, et al. (due to an accident of birth) get sweep up in it. It's hard to fight evil without shedding some blood, Harry, Dumbledore or any of the other of our heroes, didn't started it but someone has to end it. BTW, sometime this happens in real life, not so much an 11 yr old kid being swept up into and being central to the resolution of the war, but bad things happen and sometimes young men and women have to go off to war - many not more than a year or two older than Harry, Hermione, and Ron in HPatDH - and kill or be killed.

I think kids can handle a little more than we tend to give them credit for. Or more than the idiots who ban books think they can. Not only can they handle people in a book fighting battles or hunting their food - they can tell the difference between reality and fantasy.


*post title is poorly purloined from RIF-Man lyrics