Mommy Brain

Monster Blood by R. L. Stine
The Yellow House Mystery (The Boxcar Children, No. 3) by Gertrude Chandler Warner

The Beginner’s Bible: Timeless Children’s Stories by Karen Henley
Geronimo Stilton #9: A Fabumouse Vacation for Geronimo by “Geronimo Stilton”

Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends by Sarah, Stephen, and Grace Mally
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
The Book Without Words by Avi
Eldest by Christopher Paolini (to Noah)
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (to Natalie)

Rules by Cynthia Lord
Kirsten’s Surprise by Janet Shaw
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Junior Edition by David Borgenicht

(Ratatouille was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

The kids and I watched Ratatouille last night. I had heard so many good reviews of this movie when it was in the theaters, and they were right. Pixar has done it again - created a delightful animated film that kids and adults will both enjoy.

Ratatouille is the story of a rat named Remy. Remy lives in France, and he has a dream. He wants to cook. But, of course, there is a problem - he’s a rat. Through a series of circumstances, Remy teams up with Linguini, a young man working as garbage boy at Gusteau’s restaurant in Paris. Linguini can’t cook, but Remy can, and together they create culinary masterpieces.

Ratatouille has a great storyline, a good romance, fun characters - and a meaningful theme: brilliant things can come from unexpected places. The kids all loved it - well, three of them. Josiah fell asleep - but he had an excuse, we had spent the evening at the Tae Kwon Do Halloween party and he had partied himself out. The older three all give it multiple thumbs up - and asked to watch it again today.

(The Best of the Colbert Report was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

First, a confession. Four years ago, I would never have considered reviewing a DVD compilation of clips from a Comedy Channel show that makes its living by satirizing Republicans and Republican-leaning news shows. Four years ago, I considered myself a die-hard Republican. I thought the whole of politics revolved around one issue: abortion. I thought President Bush was the best possible choice for our president. Although I may still think he has been better than the alternatives we were presented with (Kerry or Gore) would have been, I no longer think that he is a sacred cow whose decisions and integrity can’t or shouldn’t be called into question.

Having said that, I have to admit that when I agreed to review The Best of the Colbert Report, it was pretty much on a whim and I didn’t give it much thought. I’d seen The Colbert Report on TV; I knew the premise. I find it humorous - and although Colbert’s most frequent targets happen to be conservatives, he is also willing to satirize the Dems when they deserve it. I thought it would be interesting to watch the DVD and see what has made Colbert’s show so popular over the past few years. What I didn’t think about was the fact that I might be angering some of my loyal readers by reviewing this DVD. I’m hoping that this won’t be the case.

Having said that Colbert is willing to ridicule the Dems when they are asking for it, I must admit that this DVD compilation pretty much targets the Republican Party, and the man Stephen Colbert modelled his program after, Bill O’Reilly. And, frankly, I find a lot of it very funny. Some of it is too one-sided, but sadly, a lot of it has the ring of truth to it. I can no longer listen to Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly because they are unwilling to admit or discuss the fact that Republicans can and do make mistakes, and that they can and do move outside of the bounds of ethics. (Most politicians do, unfortunately.) That stubborn pride is what makes them easy targets for someone like Stephen Colbert.

So, I guess my bottom line is this: If you like political satire, and you aren’t so married to the Republican party that you can’t see when they are wrong, you would find this DVD funny. If you don’t like political satire, or you think that Republicans shouldn’t be the target of satire and ridicule, I’d avoid it.

And, lastly, please don’t hate me if we disagree.

Alan Alda on acting in live theater (I miss it!):

“Sometimes, standing on the stage, I have an experience of unusual awareness. I know I’m in a theater and that an audience is watching, and I know that the woman across from me is not really who she’s claiming to be. And in spite of knowing we’re in front of other people, I know we’re alone in this room. I’m also aware of something much weirder than that. I’m aware that the two of us are other people, someplace else, arguing over something. We are so completely involved with this struggle, we could say almost anything at this moment. But we say the same thing we said last night. And I’m aware that this is because we’re acting. It’s like an endless arc of images in paired mirrors curving off into infinity. And when this moment is at its most intense, it’s at its lightest. There is no strain, in fact, there’s a feeling of floating. But, of course, I’m aware that, far from floating, I’m standing on a stage that’s raked for the audience to see us better, and I have to be careful where I plant my feet or I’ll lose my balance.

This multiple awareness is for me the ecstasy of acting. When this happens, there doesn’t seem to be any part of my brain that isn’t working on something. The clock stops, and an intricate pas de deux takes place in slow motion. You choke with emotion, yet you feel nothing. You know everything and nothing at once. You walk a narrow beam a hundred stories high, but your steps are as sure as on a sidewalk. Failure can’t happen. Death is remote. There is no way to know what you’ll say next, and then you say it. And you notice that you’re saying it slightly differently from the last time you said it at exactly this moment.”

~p. 79-80

On September 11th:

“They were buildings so tall, they had thrown out television signals across all of New York City and beyond, so simple and staunch that one glimpse of them, in a movie or on a souvenir plate, instantly said, This is New York. One by one, they descended to the ground, billowing an ugly, toxic cloud while disbelief and confusion rose in each of us from a place in our chest where once we had felt safety and comfort.

The towers came down, carrying with them the lives of people who had left us not at the end of their time, or even in an unexpected accident, but in an act of ignorant, malicious hatred. When that happened, a little patch of meaning seemed to come loose from us, like a layer of skin gone dead. Remember how after the disbelief came a desperate urge to do something? We all felt it. It was intolerable to think there was no action you could take. Out in the countryside where we lived, I went with three of my granddaughters to a shoe store. The girls were four, seven, and nine years old, and we gravely picked out a dozen pairs of heavy work boots for the rescue workers. We brought them to a truck parked across from the village commons, where two women on the back of the truck were hoisting up contributions meant for Ground Zero. In the days that followed ths attack, so many people sent truckloads of boots, blankets, and work clothes that trucks piled up along the Hudson and many tons of supplies never made it across the river from a warehouse in New Jersey. But it hadn’t been wasted effort, because we all needed to take some kind of action. The satirical website The Onion published a fake news article that, while it may have been meant to be funny, captured with poignancy our desperation. It told of a woman in Topeka, Kansas, who felt so helpless, so in need of doing something, that she baked a cake. Then she covered it with strawberries and food coloring in the shape of an American flag. Like her, and like millions of others, I made American flags, too. I went to a website and printed out flags that I taped to the rear windows of the family cars. I nailed a pole to the fence at the end of our driveway and tied a hardware-store flag to it.

As you walked the city in the days following the attack, you would see dozens of flags thirty stories high in the windows of apartment buildings. People had pasted the flags to their windows on the chance that someone would look up and know that someone else was pulling for them. During those weeks, the flag had stopped being an expression of particular political leanings; it belonged to all of us again.”

~p. 91-92

Advice for living:

“1. Make someone happy. Learn how to laugh and how to make someone else laugh. Take pleasure in who they are, as they are. In other words, love someone. Surrender to the person you love. I don’t mean give in. I mean surrender. Put down the arms of war and open the other kind. You don’t need to debate and compromise with someone you love. Just make them happy.

2. Find out how you can be helpful. It didn’t occur to me at first that being helpful was better than being the center of attention. That’s not an idea that would tend to occur to an actor. But it turns out that if you can really find a way to be helpful, more satisfaction and praise than you know what to do with will come your way. Being helpful assumes that the people you help actually want your help. And that you know enough to actually be of help and not make life worse for them than it already is. This means getting as smart as you can. But getting smart is a tricky business. The smartest people I’ve ever met are the ones who knew exactly what they were ignorant of. If you don’t know much about something, assuming that what little you know is all there is to know is not the way to find out more. And try not to assume you can just take a stab at complex things. Complex things bite. So be wary of simple answers to complex questions.

3. If you keep score, keep score your way. Don’t let the world tell you success is a big house if you think sucess is a happy home. If you meet a bully who says, “I’m stronger and richer than you, and you’re nothing if you’re not richer or stronger than I am,” and if he’s richer and stronger than you’ll ever be, wouldn’t it be stupid to get into a pissing contest with this guy?”

~p. 206-207

I’ve had a little bit of a crush on Alan Alda since I was in sixth grade and would sneak downstairs after everyone was asleep to watch M*A*S*H reruns at 11:30 p.m. I would hunch real close to the TV, the volume down almost so low I couldn’t hear it, so as not to get caught.

Of course, I guess you could say, I’ve had a crush on Hawkeye. He was smart, funny, loved the ladies - and was an all-around nice guy. I know that Alan Alda is not Hawkeye, but after reading Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I’ve Learned two years ago, and now having just finished Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, I do know that the smartness and humor are present in the actor, not just the character. Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, his second memoir, takes up where the first one left off, but is more than just a list of experiences. It is Alda’s attempt to make sense of life. What does it all mean? I may not agree with some of his conclusions, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about how he came to them.

5 out of 5 stars

My thoughts of late have gone something like this:

Articles due - need to finish Gryffindor scarves - why doesn’t Wal-mart have crowns or wands? - grocery list: can’t forget yarn to finish scarves and ingredients for dessert to bring to Tae Kwon Do party - more articles due - need to write review - haven’t written a personal blog post in ages - miss my books - ah, girls’ night - need to plan party for Mom and Dad’s 40th anniversary - oh my gosh, Josiah lost a tooth - oh yeah, Josiah’s birthday is coming up - which Harvest Party are we going to? - more articles due - forgot to call that lady about that thing - need to cancel satellite - stacks of papers to correct and file - etc. - etc. - etc.

Is it any wonder that this frantic feeling is building up and I just need to stop and take a breath? In the midst of all this busy-ness, I don’t want to just breeze past the things that really matter. Like:

~ Josiah is reading. Short-vowel words and some sight words so far, but he’s reading. Four down, zero to go. What a strange feeling - no more non-readers in the family.

~ He also lost his first tooth, and he’s turning six next week. Thank God, he is still a cuddle-bug. Lately, he has taken to jumping on my lap, wrapping his arms around my neck, and saying, “Amo, Mommy!” (Amo is “I love” in Latin.)

~ The kids and I have been doing origami every afternoon this week. We just finished the chapter on Japan in Story of the World II: The Middle Ages, and we are enjoying origami as part of that study. We also wrote haikus. These are the days I love homeschooling.

~ My parents are celebrating 40 years of marriage! I’ve watched them go through a lot of ups and downs, and they’re still together and still love each other.

~ Christmas is coming. This will be the last Christmas that Marni and Hans and their little boys, Peter and Andrew, will be with us for a while. They have sold their house and moved into an apartment and are planning to move to St. Louis in the spring. Hans will be attending Covenant Theological Seminary. Right now, they live in the Coeur d’Alene area, which means Marni is the closest sister geographically. (Andrea is in Boise; Debra is in Silverdale.) When they move, there will no longer be any siblings within a distance that takes less than a day to drive. Sob.

~ Natalie is not a little girl anymore. She is turning into a young lady - she’ll be eleven in December. Oh. my. goodness.

~ We’re in the process of… starting to… begin to get our house ready to sell. ~grin~ I’m very excited about moving into a bigger house in a different neighborhood, but… This was our first home. When we moved in, Natalie was 3 1/2, Noah was 2, Jonathan was 1, and Josiah wasn’t even being considered yet. It is bittersweet to think about moving.

~ We are slowly getting more involved with our new church. It’s the best choice we’ve found for our family, but I still feel a longing for something more. More community, less programs, more worship, more tradition, more authenticity, more loving God with all your mind as well as your heart. The kids are thrilled with Awana, and I’m glad they like it, but I have some reservations about making the studying and memorizing of God’s Word into a competition. And can anyone please tell me why children’s programs and obscene amounts of candy have to go together?

~ I have a bounty of riches when it comes to my to-read shelves. (And stacks.) The extra income from the freelance writing is so needed, but I don’t like feeling guilty whenever I sit down to read. Every once in a while, my stacks catch my eye, and such a feeling of longing comes over me - when will there be enough time? There are so many things I want to know, to understand, so many stories I want to dive in to. Sigh.

In the midst of all these thoughts, I want to thank you for sticking around. There haven’t been many comments lately, but I know people are still reading and visiting, and I appreciate
that more than you will know.

That’s what’s been going on with me. What’s going on with you?

(October Road was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

I have to admit that until Click Communications contacted me about reviewing Season One of October Road, I had never heard of the ABC series, which stars Bryan Greenberg, Laura Prepon, and Tom Berenger. The premise sounded interesting, so I said sure. The first season only includes six episodes, so I figured I could watch it over a couple of weeks, write the review, and be done.

I watched all six episodes in three days. Don’t worry, it was a weekend, so I didn’t neglect homeschooling. I did feed the kids, and I was crocheting the kids’ Gryffindor scarves for Halloween. So I wasn’t completey unproductive.

I can’t think of another show that this reminds me of - and that is such a good thing. It is an hour-long drama, with lots of comedy and a fabulous soundtrack. Nick Garrett left his tiny Massachusetts home town right after high school for a six-week backpacking tour of Europe. He left behind Hannah, his high school sweetheart, and Eddie, his best friend and the person with whom he planned to go into business. Nick never came back. Instead, he wrote an autobiographical novel and didn’t disguise the characters he based on his friends very well.

Ten years later, Nick’s book has been turned into a hit movie, but he hasn’t been able to write another book. Hoping that going home again will break through his writer’s block, Nick heads back. Eddie isn’t speaking to him, and Hannah is raising ten-year-old Sam, who she swears is not Nick’s son. Episode two is called “Pros and Cons of Upsetting the Applecart” - and that is basically the idea of the series.

The characters are terrific, the acting is wonderful, and now I can’t wait for season two. It hasn’t been scheduled yet, but it has been filmed and I think ABC is holding on to it for a replacement when the first new series tanks.

Be sure and catch up with Season One before they start showing season 2. I’m heading to Amazon to see if they’ve put out a soundtrack CD.

I have another great giveaway, thanks to the folks at Special Ops Media.

According to the news release:

Ayo is a supremely talented artist. She broke through in Europe last summer with the hit single “Down On My Knees”, followed by her Platinum album Joyful, produced by Jay Newland (Norah Jones). She has since rapidly conquered such diverse markets as France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Argentina, Korea and Australia .

Ayo was born of a Nigerian father and a Romanian Gypsy mother. She was discovered in New York and was signed worldwide by Polydor France (Universal/Interscope in the U.S).

Ayo is being compared to everyone from Sade to Stevie Wonder, to Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading and even Otis Redding, but Ayo is Ayo. Her songs are very ‘personal’ and her audience hits all age categories evenly, from very young to mature.

Check out Ayo’s official web site, listen to some samples of her songs here and here, and then leave me a comment if you would like to win a copy of her upcoming CD Joyful. I’ll keep the contest open until Tuesday, October 30th at 12 midnight Pacific Standard Time.

There have been some wonderful benefits to blogging. First, of course, is the incredible community of people I have met. And there is the fact that I have somewhere to vent, work through issues, and just spill the beans. The side benefit has been the books and movies and CDs I have been sent to review.

Last year, I was invited to be on one of the judging panels of the Cybils (The Children’s and YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards). This year, the panels were limited to those who are primarily children’s lit bloggers, and I didn’t qualify. But, there has been a lasting benefit in that every few months, we receive packages of books or educational products from Chronicle Books. I don’t ask for them, and I don’t ever know when they’re coming. I don’t always feel grabbed enough by the books to mention them, but this time, I had to. The kids were pretty excited when a heavy package was delivered earlier this week. This is what we found inside:

This is the 10th anniversary edition of Olive, the Other Reindeer by Vivian Walsh and illustrated by J. Otto Seibold. Olive is a little dog, but when she hears the Christmas lyric “Olive (all of) the other reindeer,” she starts to dream big and heads to the North Pole to find Santa Claus. This special edition has flaps to lift, pop-ups, and even scratch and sniff pages. The kids have read this a few times already, and I know it will be a Christmas favorite.

Squiggles is a huge drawing, coloring, and painting book by Taro Gomi. The pages are full of fun line drawings, and invitations to the reader to add their own artwork. With extra thick pages, paint or markers won’t bleed through. Noah grabbed this as soon as we opened the package, and I’ve seen him drawing on its pages off and on for the past few days. The other kids are hoping to get a chance at it, too - eventually.

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Junior Edition by David Borgenicht and Robin Epstein was the one that Natalie disappeared with. With chapter titles like “How to survive braces,” “How to keep a nosy sibling out of your stuff,” and “How to survive farting in public,” this is a humorous take on many situations that tweens find themselves facing. Natalie will be writing a review when she’s finished reading this one.

I finished Kristin Lavransdatter II: The Wife by Sigrid Undset last night. (review of part one) I enjoyed part two very much, though not quite as much as part one. In this installment, Kristin’s husband Erlend gets involved in some royal intrigues, and much of the politics of Norway / Sweden / Denmark went right over my head. The book occasionally bogged down during those details (the endnotes in my Penguin Classics edition helped tremendously), but it is still very much worth reading. I don’t have time for a more detailed review, but here are a couple of passages that demonstrate what a gifted author Undset was - and what a gifted translator Tina Nunnally is.

Saying goodbye

“It was the most beautiful springtime weather on the following day, as Kristin stood behind the corner of the main house looking out toward the slopes beyond the river. There was a verdant smell in the air, the singing of creeks released everywhere, and a green sheen over all the groves and meadows. At the spot where the road went along the mountainside above Laugarbru, a blanket of winter rye shimmered fresh and bright. Jon had burned off the saplings the year before and planted rye on the cleared land.

When the funeral procession reached that spot, she would be able to see it best.

And then the procession emerged from beneath the scree, across from the fresh new acres of rye.

She could see all the priests riding on ahead, and there were also vergers among the first group, carrying the crosses and tapers. She couldn’t see the flames in the bright sunlight, but the candles looked like slender white streaks. Two horses followed, carrying her father’s coffin on a litter between them, and then she recognized Erlend on the black horse, her mother, Simon and Ramborg, and may of her kinsmen and friends in the long procession.

For a moment she could faintly hear the singing of the priests above the roar of the Laag, but then the tones of the hymn died away in the rush of the river and the steady trickling of the springtime streams on the slopes. Kristin stood there, gazing off into the distance, long after the last packhorse with the traveling bags had disappeared into the woods.”

Heritage

“The beautiful large estate lay below her on the hillside, like a jewel on the wide bosom of the slope. She gazed out across all the land she had owned along with her husband. Thoughts about the manor and its care had filled her soul to the brim. She had worked and struggled. Not until this evening did she realize how much she had struggled to put this estate back on its feet and keep it going - how hard she had tried and how much she had accomplished.

She had accepted it as her fate, to be borne with patience and a straight back, that this had fallen to her. Just as she had striven to be patient and steadfast no matter what life presented, every time she learned she was carrying yet another child under her breast - again and again. With each son added to the flock she recognized that her responsibility had grown for ensuring the prosperity and secure position of the lineage. Tonight she realized that her ability to survey everything at once and her watchfulness had also grown with each new child entrusted to her care. Never had she seen it so clearly as on this evening - what destiny had demanded of her and what it had given her in return with her seven sons. Over and over again joy had quickened the beat of her heart; fear on their behalf had rent it in two. They were her children, these big sons with their lean, bony, boy’s bodies, just as they had been when they were small and so plump that they barely hurt themselves when they tumbled down on their way between the bench and her knee. They were hers, just as they had been back when she lifted them out of the cradle to her milk-filled breast and had to support their heads, which wobbled on their frail necks the way a bluebell nods on its stalk. Wherever they ended up in the world, wherever they journeyed, forgetting their mother - she thought that for her, their lives would be like a current in her own life; they would be one with her, just as they had been when she alone on this earth knew about the new life hidden inside, drinking from her blood and making her cheeks pale. Over and over she had endured the sinking, sweat-dripping anguish when she realized that once again her time had come; once again she would be pulled under by the groundswell of birth pains - until she was lifted up with a new child in her arms. How much richer and stronger and braver she had become with each child was something that she first realized tonight.”

Remember that survey that told us most Americans read four books (or less) a year? Well, Melanie Lynne Hauser decided to do something about it on her blog, The Refrigerator Door. She has challenged all of her readers to purchase three new books a month and post about them. New books, because used books don’t help authors who might not be as well-settled financially as a Grisham or King. They can be paperback or hardback, though, whichever you prefer.

Now, I know I won’t be able to do this every month. First of all, my husband would have a fit. (Actually, he’d probably have a fit if he knew what I already spend on books, but that’s another matter.) Second of all, I have five huge to-be-read stacks that are full of books I bought (mostly new, a few at a library sale) and if I keep adding three a month to that, I’ll never get them all read.

But, this month I can participate. I received a gift certificate to Amazon, so I don’t have to feel guilty about it, either!

Here are the three books I’ve purchased this month.

First, Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. I ordered this one because I love football and I adore all things Italian. I’ve already finished it, too. It was a good read (3 out of 5 stars). I loved the idea of a NFL quarterback ending up in Italy - the land of soccer obsessions - playing American football, all because he screwed up so badly in a play-off game. Obviously, this is a departure for Grisham, the king of the legal thriller, but you can tell he enjoyed his topic. Especially the food. Boy, don’t read this one on an empty stomach! (I know, this purchase isn’t helping an under-appreciated author, but I wanted to read it.)

The next two I ordered with my gift certificate - yesterday. So I haven’t received them or read them yet, but I’m looking forward to both of them.

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs. I loved his first book The Know It All, about his quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica in one year. He has a great dry wit, and I am looking forward to more of the same in this one.

Second, I ordered My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman. I had this on my wish list because I saw her work recommended somewhere. Now that I think of it, it was probably at Melanie’s blog.

So there you have my Three for October. If you want to participate, click on over to Melanie’s blog for details and she’ll link to your post.

(The Hoax was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

The Hoax is one of those true stories that you can’t quite believe is true. Richard Gere stars as Clifford Irving, a novelist who just can’t get a break. His novel is turned down as being a poorly-written Phillip Roth knock-off, and he’s broke. On a complete whim, he storms into his agent’s office and tells her that he is working on the “book of the century” - although he has no idea what that is going to be.

After some brainstorming with his wife Edith (Marcia Gay Harden) and his best friend and fellow writer Dick (brilliantly portrayed by Alfred Molina), he hits on an idea. An auto-biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, written with Hughes himself. In spite of the fact that he has never met or talked to Hughes, he pitches the book to his agent and McGraw-Hill Publishing. They believe him - because he has forged a hand-written letter from “Hughes” saying he wants Clifford to write his story.

The story unfolds from there, and Clifford becomes so obsessed with his own fantasy, that he risks his marriage and his friendship to maintain the fiction. In fact, the line between reality and fantasy begins to blur in his own mind.

This movie has an interesting premise and a talented cast: Gere, Molina, and Harden are joined by Julie Delpy, Hope Davis, and Stanley Tucci. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t quite work. I found it hard to find anything worth liking in Clifford Irving. Here is a man who is willing to get his wife and best friend involved in a highly illegal undertaking - and they have both already stuck with him through some pretty stupid escapades, including an extra-marital affair.

It is an interesting story, however, and it is amazing how far the hoax goes before the gig is up.

The Hoax is rated R for language.

(Meet the Robinsons was provided to me by Click Communications for the purpose of review.)

Noah’s review:

The movie was about this boy, Lewis, who liked to invent. He was trying to find his mother because he lived at an orphanage. But then, on his rooftop, he once met a kid named Wilbur, and Wilbur said he was from the future, but Lewis didn’t believe him. He asked Wilbur to prove it, so Wilbur took him to the future and there was a lot of wacked out stuff. And he got to have a family. 3 and a half stars.

Natalie’s review:

The movie was about this boy who liked to invent things. His mother had left him at an adoption center and he had never seen her. The he made something for a science fair and this bad guy wrecked it, and then this thirteen-year-old kid came and said he was from the future. There’s a big battle in the future between the bad guy, who turns out to be one of his friends from the adoption center, and the kid and his friend’s family. He does not get his mom, but he figures out in the future that he gets married to someone and the boy that he was helping turns out to be his son. 4 stars

The kids loved Meet the Robinsons. Noah especially liked all of Lewis’s inventions. Lewis visits the future, and the year 2037 is full of some pretty interesing things, like hip-hopping frogs, dogs who wear glasses, and talking dinosaurs. The DVD bonus features include deleted scenes, “Keep Moving Forward: Inventions that Shaped the World”, Grammy Award winner Rob Thomas’s “Little Wonders” music video, “Kids of the Future” music video by the Jonas Brothers, “Family Function 5000: Family Tree Game”, “Inventing the Robinsons” and director Stephen Anderson’s audio commentary. The DVD will be released on Tuesday, October 23rd.