“Grave?” Uh… “Pathetic?” Mmm… “Disservice?” Hmmm…

Sunday morning and a girl is wide-eyed and glowering at me with that ‘for the love of all things pasta, rescue me dad!’ look.

The toy did not make any outrageous claims about its own educational value. It just came in a neat little package as if to say, this toy is so cool who cares if it teaches anything because its just freaking insects for kids.

My initial assumptions, having only vague and distant memories of both tomes, were as follows: Verne as science and Wyss as religion. I thought it might be interesting to track my “skeptical impressions” of literature at various points in two contrasting books.

…is all I’m really saying…

True, time and further research will tell if there is any weight behind these conclusions, but skeptical parents shouldn’t be too quick to hop on the bandwagon and panic from a single research paper on a poorly understood group of chemicals.