We sometimes highlight children’s books here. Not high literature, exactly, not the classics, but new titles that have engaged the almost-reader in our household and not bored his mother by repeated readings.

This week’s winner is:

Amazon listing here.

Checked it out on Sunday. Have had to read it every night since, and I’m thinking this might appear with the birthday presents. Joseph loves this, and I agree that amid the 2,000,000+ ABC books out there, this one stands out  – it’s a large book, and the illustrations, by a veteral comic book artist, are eye-popping and strong. The text is clever – each letter is illustrated by a newly-created superhero – who rains on robbers, weaves through water, and so on.

This was another rather clever ABC book we enjoyed at some point last year.

Oh, and Michael told this story in his blog, but I’ll repeat it here.

One evening in Rome, the children and I were walking down Borgo Pio, on our way to Piazza Navona , and encountered the priest Michael was going to be dining with later in the evening. We chatted, and moved on.

When we returned to the apartment, Michael reported that the priest had said that in this meeting, Joseph had said to him, "You’re a fat man!" I was, as Michael said accurately on his blog, flabbergasted. Joseph is certainly way too full of himself these days (just a few months ago he was painfully shy…what happened?) , but I was standing right there, and I knew for a fact he had said no such thing. I thought for just a minute more and realized..ah…

What he’d said was "You’re Batman!"

Apparently with no Pope available, any old cleric will do. At least he didn’t tell him he had two heads, as he told  Zadok.