not a good bedtime book!

Last night, I snuggled into bed with Jon Scieszka's Knucklehead: tall tales & mostly true stories of growing up Scieszka. It is definitely not the book you want be reading to help you relax into sleep--I laughed and laughed and laughed. Jon is the second of six boys, sons of a principal and a nurse (who used only anatomically correct language--her dinnertime jokes are hilarious, and not for the squeamish). He says he's the smartest, handsomest and friendliest of the lot...nothing like a little confidence, eh?

Jon Scieszka (pronounced shesk-ah) knows boys. He wrote The Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales, Time Warp Trio series and, my personal favorite for reading aloud (if you have any drama/ham in you at all), The true story of the three pigs by A. Wolf (brilliantly illustrated by Lane Smith, his frequent cohort...they are definitely soulmates!). He has the right mixture of humor and 2nd grade crassness that boys seem to love (and quite a few girls, too!)

Being the youngest child in my family, with brothers who were 15 and 16 when I was born, reading about growing up with brothers is endlessly fascinating. There is something about boys growing up together: my grown-up and staid brothers set the house on fire, both fell out of the car and suffered many injuries during their formative years...something I've always found hard to believe since they've always seemed so conventional to me.

Any way, I can hardly wait to crawl into bed tonight to see what the next adventure of the Scieszka crew will be. After a busy day at the library, I need another good laugh!