The real travesty of the world today is that giant roadside clowns aren't peddling the best drug around-- the imagination.
Nestled in the hills of Highland Park in Northeast Los Angeles is the funky, bohemian La Tierra de la Culebra Art Park, otherwise known as the Land of the Serpent.
My son and I visited recently and realized a strange parallel between our experiences and Max's from Maurice Sendak's kidlit classic, Where the Wild Things Are. With sincere apologies to that book's creator, here's a super-abbreviated and paraphrased account of our day among serpents:
Max made mischief.
"I'LL EAT YOU UP!" he said.
That night a forest grew in Max's bedroom.
Max tamed the wild things with a magic trick of staring into their eyes...
Max, the king of all wild things, cried, "Let the wild rumpus start!"
Soon, Max grew lonely and wanted to be where he was loved best of all...
And when he got home, his comfy chair was waiting for him, along with his supper-- and it was still hot.
I'm a sucker for fun-lovin' bookshelves. Remember my son's "On Beyond Zebra" bookshelf? I just sent a photo of it covered in books to a cool contest, "Around the World in a Hundred Bookshelves," being sponsored by the PaperTigers Blog.
Click here for more info about the contest and to see kids' bookshelves from around the world.
Hungering for more amazing bookshelves? Check out this blog, totally devoted to the art of the bookshelf. Some of the bookshelves here are so amazingly beautiful that it would be a shame to clutter them up with books.
"Great Books Are the Golden Keys to the Palace of Wisdom" is the title of the mural that decorates the Children's Room at the Cypress Park Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. 
The Cypress Park Branch contains a large number of books in Spanish. This ninja-in-training takes a break from La Historia de Spider-Man to search for ninja secrets in Owen's Marshmellow Chick by Kevin Henkes. You'd be surprised how many secrets are buried deep within the "Way of the Marshmellow."
The pride of the library's community room is a large mural that celebrates the adjacent L.A. River and honors the life work of César Chávez as a farm labor advocate. Why not plan a class field trip here to learn more about his life?
