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Alex has been borrowing books exclusively from the paranormal and Egyptology section of her school library. Every week there's another book about the Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, or mummies circulating through our house. She's also been rereading her collection of Asterix comics.

We have a standing rule that Asterix and Tintin books may not leave the house. I don't know how other parents would feel about some of the stereotypes and/or humor depicted in their pages. Lately some of Alex's friends have been up in her bunk, reading samples from her collection. This makes us both me and Rachel feel a little edgy.

Last night, while going over her homework with Rachel, Alex told me about drawing a landscape in art class. Of course, her chosen image was of ancient Egypt. She drew sand dunes, and challenged me to guess what she drew hiding under the dunes. Arabs with big noses.

Well. What do I say about this? I know where it came from. While putting a Semitic nose on an Arab caricature might be in poor taste, it is not out of bounds for a cartoonist and Alex definitely knows from her King Tut research that Arabs live in the Middle East (but are distinct from ancient Egyptians.) It's also true that Alex doesn't even realize that our country is at war in Arab lands, and - particularly when you live in a Jewish neighborhood - you need to be careful what you say, lest people impart the wrong motives to you.

Rachel doesn't like Asterix/Tintin to begin with, and this conversation didn't make her feel any better about them.

Then, later that night, Rachel went up to say goodnight to Alex and turn off her reading light. Alex requested a few more minutes to finish Asterix in Switzerland, and then asked, "Mom, what does...oh-gree mean?"

"Ogre? You know what an ogre is." When she was three years old, Alex called me and Rachel ogres after we made her leave a gathering where Shrek was playing.

"No - o-r-g-y."

That's another Asterix teaching moment for you.

Lost In Translation

A coworker brought this figurine back home from a business trip as a present for Alex (Andrew got Babar.) Alex was thrilled. She affixed it to her backpack and showed it off to her class at school. They are starting a Social Studies unit on Japan, and Alex told them that "The Blue Lotus", from which this figurine's image is taken, is set in Japan. Rachel wanted to know if this was true.

"Well, it's set in Japan-occupied Shanghai just before the second world war."

"So would it be appropriate for her to bring to school?"

"Only if they're going to discuss Japanese war crimes, or opium smuggling."

I find this material much more interesting than the Little House series. Alex and I have been taking an hour each night to read Tintin together. Rachel just yesterday mentioned that she's ready for our stash to be exhausted. She hasn't read to her daughter in a month. I felt bad because I hadn't considered that she might feel left out.

Because I wanted to

Rachel told me it was okay - that I should consider it as an investment for all the kids. I bought the complete Tintin set I wrote about earlier. Alex and I have been reading them together at night, and sometimes a few pages in the morning before I go to work. There's a lot of casual racism that needs to be illuminated, but Alex doesn't like it when I interrupt the flow of the story. "Yeah yeah, I know, Dad", she says, "Keep reading."

My brother said "So when she's 16, she's allowed to get Tintin in the Congo, right?" Tintin in the Congo is so appalling that it was never translated into English. Don't look to early 20th-century Belgians for progressive thoughts about Africa.

I have insisted on proper treatment and care of the softcover books, which is slightly ironic considering how carelessly I treated my original set when I was six years old. However, I have to preserve the fiction that I bought these for Andrew and Lizzie too, and they are entitled to the same non-dogeared experience their big sister had.