they're not bookish people, my cousin and cousin-in-law. when my niece and nephew go to the library they take out children's non-fiction on the human body and marine life, and i know that they're getting a microscope for christmas this year so they can make slides and look at cells. i've never heard of any four-year-old being given a microscope, but my cousin is a cell biologist afterall, and obviously, our kids will be reading tennyson and pratchett when they're four, wouldn't they? and we wouldn't be able to put two test tubes over a bunsen burner for them. still, i feel it's my duty to supply the literary education, because no one else in the family can, or will. for that matter, they don't speak chinese, and this distresses me greatly. (i feel vaguely like christabel and her daughter/niece who doesn't like poesy.) when they go to secondary school, i hope they'll bring their literature and chinese homework to me, though the way things are going there mightn't be humanities education left in this country. something for poach to work on, when she's the minister for education!
* i forgot to tell people about the starfruit episode, but su-lin has written about it in her blog. in brief: me: can i have your starfruit? nephew: not yet ripe! su-lin calls it an act of "diplomacy and duplicity." teehee.
my nephew, the one su-lin was so impressed with*, wants a carebear for christmas. and my niece is no better, she wants anything that has to do with barbie. *aggrieved* i can't see my way to it; giving anyone a barbie doll this lifetime is fairly unthinkable. i'd ordered her a small encyclopedia of greek myths three weeks ago, but julian informs me that it was badly packaged and arrived at his doorstep quite damaged. [me: "but but, it's a new book!" julian: "not anymore it isn't."] so i'm casting around for something else.