Childcraft: Exploring the World Around Us

Now that I’m up to reviewing the seventh volume, the text is getting much denser and the graphics fewer. I have no memory of this book. Maybe it’s because it begins with “Animals of Zoo and Circus” neither of which I had ever seen.

Stories about the zoo and circus animals are told from the animals’ viewpoints. “Little Ram’s ears were torn. His tender trunk was bleeding.” The stories about trapping elephants and bears are scary. But later we are assured “Ranta and Ram had good memories. Soon they learned to know what was expected of them. Ram was very popular with children, who often fed him melons.”

The volume ends with articles on plants. The chapters by Margaret McKenny are very engaging. Her paragraphs on the dandelion makes me feel a bit guilty about how I treat them. “Perhaps you, too, have sent these tiny troopers dancing on their way by blowing the parachutes from the dandelion’s head.” I’d forgotten how fun that can be.

What I learned

Tiger hunting is a popular sport of rich princes in India.

A baby kangaroo,” even with the nipple in its mouth, cannot suck. So the mother has to pump the milk into the baby. She does this as you would blow up a balloon or bubble gum, or pump air into a bicycle tire.” Huh? I found this to be a wee bit disturbing. There are no references in this book about the lack of kangaroo flatulence. Perhaps that is a newer discovery.

When an opossum is playing dead “it may be picked up by the tail and swung about in a circle, yet its feet continue to stick out stiffly.” I didn’t try that when the cats and I were confronted by a possum last spring. I don’t think I could make myself even touch its tail. But now I think I might substitute opossum for cat when referring to how much room there is to swing one.

I’m happy that I had just a normal pet mouse. “A most interesting kind of tame mouse is the waltzing, or dancing, mouse…. This pretty mouse spends a large part of its waking hours spinning gaily around in dizzy circles.” I’ve now learned that it’s also particularly susceptible to disease and sensitive to changes in temperature. If your mouse waltzes, you should take it to the vet immediately.

“Pigs raised near cities usually are fed on garbage.” All the hogs I ever knew got grain. But I’ve never known any suburban pigs.

Ants have customs, just like foreign people do.

The praying mantis is the only insect that can look over its own shoulder.

Spider silk is used to make “the cross lines for surveying instruments, telescopes, and gun and submarine-sighting equipment.”

If you pick a trillium flower will likely cause the plant to die. I never considered picking one.

Children used to go for a ramble. I’ve meandered and walked idly a few times, but I’m not sure if I rambled as a child. Well I probably did ramble on and on while talking to my parents. But I never looked for flowers while rambling. Not even a ramblin’ rose.

Dick Whittington’s cat was once famous even though that particular folktale didn’t make it into the early Childcraft volumes. I had to go look up the story.

So today’s trivia question is …

   What made Dick Whittington’s cat famous? Answer.

MORE on the Childcraft collection:
Poems of Early Childhood
Storytelling and Other Poems
Folk and Fairy Tales
Animal Friends and Adventures
Life in Many Lands
Great Men and Famous Deeds
Exploring the World Around Us
Creative Play and Hobbies
Art for Children

Fears: Part two

I’m currently afraid that the fly the cats can’t seem to catch is going to land on my face while I sleep. Then it’s going to crawl up to the corner of my eye and take a drink. Like they do to horses.

Thanks to a friend who educated me about these things, I’m also scared of dermoid cysts and teratomas. These are tumors with hair or teeth in them. According to Wikipedia — which I may have to stop reading — teratomas have even been know to have an eyeball inside. This is seriously screwed up biology. I want to know exactly where I have hair, teeth, and eyeballs. But I can’t help but wonder if if did have a dermoid cycst (and maybe I do, how would I know?), would the hair be gray or still brown?

I fear that Wikipedia will soon be authored only by men who think it’s fun to include photos of things like dermoid cysts to their entries.

I worry that the seas will rise and while we look pretty safe here in Minnesota, people from Miami and Virginia Beach might come knocking. Or people from the West Coast.

On a related note, I fear that not only will a warmer climate make life harder for polar bears and birds in the Amazon, it will all mean soggy and pale pork chops. I love pork chops.

I could cry tears of blood. Now that’s a pretty cool thing for a vampire to do in a movie, but can you image what that would do to your makeup?

I have anxiety about my wardrobe. I could be wearing the wrong color and people are judging me for it. I’m not referring to my fashion sense, but to how your brain is wired. I guess I better start wearing red to job interviews. I wonder if red cowboy boots are enough red.

I fear that I might be average. Luckily I don’t think I ever received a “C” while in school. And my personality type (INTP) is a very small percentage of the population. I worry more about becoming a typical old lady and somehow acquiring the three chronic health conditions that most senior insured women have. Really I’d prefer to have no chronic conditions. I’ve hit middle age without any so keep your fingers crossed for me. Unless you have chronic arthritis.

I think I share this fear with many others. I fear that I married a mutant. I think it would be OK if I was the mutant. Then there would be no way I could be average. But I don’t want to be sleeping next to one. I mean the guy might have teeth growing somewhere in his abdomen.

I’m also afraid that I might be reading too many stories about science.