Dance, dance revolution!

By Readers

What music rocks your family? We asked readers of our weekly e-newsletter, Minnesota Parent This Week, about their family’s favorite music. Here’s what you had to say.

Robb Long

Kate Lynch and Chris Beaty of Clementown, with Barbara Meyer as Funky Snowman.

Parents rock!

By Staff

Kids have never had it so good. With a generation of hip musical parents cooing to their own babies and toddlers right now, it’s getting easier to find smart, hummable songs that the whole family will love. And doesn’t involve men in color-coded shirts.

All set for summer

By Monica Wright

Stacks of books for every reader

Robb Long

Everyone's a reader

By Staff

It’s just a matter of finding the right books

Books

By Maura Keller

Photo courtesy of Frances England

No slumps here

By Bill Childs

Smell my feet

By Tricia Cornell

Not ready for school? Then read up!

By Maura Keller

Mercy Watson: Princess in Disguise
By Kate DiCamillo
Candlewick Press
$16.95, ages 4 and up
Minnesota's award-winning author Kate DiCamillo does it again! In this newest addition to the Mercy Watson series, Mercy's fans will enjoy her hilarious Halloween antics as she searches for her favorite treat - marvelously buttered toast. Delightful illustrations will make this an instant favorite.

Be a Super Test Taker!
By Laurie Rozakis
Scholastic Reference
$6.99, ages 7-10
With school days just around the corner, elementary students will benefit from this kid-friendly book offering an array of guides to exams and standardized tests. From helpful hints on how to answer every type of question to strategies for test day, this book will

Ready to read

By MPP

- Monica Wright

The Dragonfly Door
By John Adams
Illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson
Feather Rock Books, Inc., $17.95
Baby dragonflies Lea and Nym live together under a rock in the weeds. When Lea disappears, Nym is left alone for the first time. This gentle story helps children deal with change and loss.

- Valerie Tukey

The End
By David LaRochelle
Illustrated by Richard Egielski
Arthur A. Levine Books, $16.99
"The end" is usually just that: how a book wraps up. But in this unique fairy tale the story begins with the end and works backwards to visit a flying teacup, dragons, a princess, and a very hungry giant.

- Monica Wright

Kelly of Hazel Ridge
By Robbyn Smith van

The nuk princess
the answer to an addiction

By KATE HOPPER

I dreaded the day Stella would have to give up her pacifier. She was hard-core addicted to it. Whenever we were in the car, she whined, "My nuk, my nuk, I need my nuk!" And at bedtime, it was a must. When we popped it into her mouth, it was like a shot of valium.

She loved her nuk, but she was almost 3 years old; it was a little embarrassing, really. Most of the 3-year-olds - and many of the 2-year-olds - we knew had long given up their pacifiers, but not Stella, and Donny and I knew it wouldn't be easy to wean her from it.

When she turned 2, we instituted The Nuk Rules: no nuks downstairs, no nuks when she was trying to talk. Mostly, she accepted these limitations, but occasionally she tried to sneak a nuk downstairs, or she refused to pull it out of her mouth as she

Pondering the things we pass on
Is a bedroom set ever just a bedroom set?

By Kris Berggren

BY KRIS BERGGREN

Decluttering after a long, cold, lonely winter improves feng shui, maybe brings in extra cash via garage sale proceeds, or at least generates altruistic pleasure - not to mention a tax write-off - when you donate stuff to charity. In addition to these restorative psychological, material, and spiritual benefits, may I suggest that spring-cleaning may even refresh your outlook on parenting?

We recently reorganized our house, moving two daughters from separate bedrooms into a shared third-floor space with its own bathroom, while the family office space shifted to the second floor. We ruthlessly rid drawers and closets of old school papers, old clothes, and half-finished craft projects. We hauled out bags and bags of trash and dropped off still more bags of

From Ophelia to Oprah: reading with our girls

By KRIS BERGGREN

Reading with children is possibly my greatest parenting pleasure. From Dr. Seuss to C.S. Lewis, board books to chapter books, I'll read anything, almost anytime, when a child asks me to. One daughter, at 3, could not get enough of Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal. The entire Chronicles of Narnia took my son and me through months of bedtimes some years ago. Then there's my 14-year-old, often the last one at our house to put down the book she's reading and turn out her bedside lamp at night. Her tastes are broad, running from classic texts like The Diary of Anne Frank and To Kill a Mockingbird to the improbably titled Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas by Georgia Nicolson.

Pleased as I am that my kids are big readers, I've yearned for the day one of my girls would discover Jane

Escape from Princess Land

By Tricia Cornell

Peggy Orenstein has had enough. Enough pink, enough frills, enough tiaras, enough princesses. In December, the magazine writer and author of three books including Flux and Schoolgirls (and, incidentally, Minneapolis native) let loose in a rant called "What's Wrong with Cinderella" in the New York Times magazine.

"I worry about what playing Little Mermaid is teaching [my 3-year-old daughter]," she writes. "I've spent much of my career writing about experiences that undermine girls' well-being, warning parents that a preoccupation with body and beauty (encouraged by films, TV, magazines and, yes, toys) is perilous to their daughters' mental and physical health. Am I now supposed to shrug and forget all that?"

Orenstein, as she usually does, got people talking. And most of

Through the looking glass
Does your daughter see a happy, healthy girl?

By KRIS BERGGREN

In the film The Devil Wears Prada, the ing/nue played by a dazzling (and allegedly size 6) Anne Hathaway, star of preteen hits The Princess Diaries 1 and 2, navigates a Vogue-alike magazine's editorial offices surrounded by ambitious fashionistas who look down their noses at anyone not a size 2 - or, preferably, a 0. One character in the movie shares her weight loss technique: to avoid eating anything at all until she's about to faint, when she consumes a cube of cheese.

But how does this stereotypical slaving for a runway-slender silhouette play out in the malls and junior high halls of St. James, St. Cloud, or St. Paul? Even in wholesome Minnesota where dairy princesses rule, a relative handful of girls suffer a diagnosis of a life-threatening eating disorder like bulimia or

Minnesota gems

By Maura Keller

Each year, the Minnesota Humanities Commission honors local writers and illustrators in the Minnesota Book awards. The books below were chosen as 2006 finalists in the children's and young adult categories.

CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION

Marooned: The Strange But True Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe
By Robert Kraske, Stillwater, Clarion Books, ages 9-12
Daniel Defoe based his famous tale on the story of an English sailor named Alexander Selkirk, who survived on a deserted island.

Minnesota's Capitol: A Centennial Story
By Leigh Roethke, Minneapolis Afton Historical Society Press
Beautiful illustrations and informative text make this book a fitting testimony to the Capitol building's rich

Parent shorts

By Sharon Secor

Let's Dish! opens location in Woodbury

Let's Dish!, a retail outlet that provides an efficient way to prepare healthy, tasty meals for busy singles and families, is cooking up a storm since opening its doors in Eden Prairie last October. The demand for assembling stress-free meals continues to grow, so a new Let's Dish! store in Woodbury opened its doors at the end of September.

Let's Dish! customers register for a session online and choose the meals they wish to make from the monthly menu. Then, in just two hours, customers rotate among food prep stations while socializing with friends, following easy directions, and tweaking recipes to suit their individual tastes. Customers leave with a number of ready-to-cook meals to store in their freezer.