Last Friday, I went to a storybook reading at my local library. Even though I think the whole thing was for babies, I still had a good time. First, everyone warmed up with a round of "The Wheels On The Bus," as performed by the great Raffi. Even though the driver spends half the song yelling at people, and the bumps in the road send the passengers flying all over the place, I think the song ends on a happy note. If anything, it teaches us to be nicer to each other. It also is a reminder that we should write to our congressman about the condition of our city's roads.

PLAYGROUP/PLAYGROUP: Well, Playgroup is really a man named Trevor Jackson, and he has been making music for longer than I have been alive. This record has the same name as the group. It is his first for Astralwerks. I had never heard anything like it before. My daddy was listening to it with me and said that it reminded him of a cross between early ‘80s dance music and the old Zaxxon video game for ColecoVision. I listened to this on my dad’s expensive stereo (which he says kicks A-S-S!!!), and I could feel all of the bass in my chest.

My bike is the coolest bike in the whole universe. My bike is red. My bike goes super fast. One time I rode my bike super fast and almost hit my mean neighbor. She yelled at me and told me I was going too fast, but she doesn't understand that my bike is fast. I like cooking hot-dogs on the fire at the campground. My bike has two wheels, I think that's why it goes so darned fast. My dad told me to write lots of stuff about my bike so that I could see my mom. My mom lives in a place for people who think about different things than other people. My mom smells better than anyone I know.

Me and my daddy used to live in Springfield, but we moved here to Columbus in April. I had a lot of friends in Springfield and I didn't want to have to leave, but my daddy said we had to. He said that I would make new friends in Columbus.

I'm not allowed to play with toy guns or knives anymore. It sucks. When I was little I used to get G.I.Joe and bow and arrows and toy knives and big machine guns. We would play war and cowboys and Indians. We used to build forts and tree houses and booby traps and then protect them from the enemy. Now, they took all of the cool toys away. How am I supposed to protect my fort from the other army with a See-N-Speak? And there used to be really cool cartoons to watch. Now I'm not allowed to watch any of the cool stuff. Bob the Builder? Are you kidding me? Bob the Builder is stupid.

One time I wanted to eat a hot-dog, so I put it in the microwave to heat it up. While it was warming up, I went to the bathroom. But when I came back it was gone! I thought my brother's friend, David, ate it. So I wrote a poem about it:


I was so hungry
I thought I might die.
So I went to the fridge
To see what was inside.
A lonely old hot-dog
In the fridge sat.
Leftover from the picnic
That we were all at.
I decided to eat it
So in the microwave it went.
And that yummy smell of hot-dog

Hello, my name is Jake. I am seven and my Uncle Joe is passed out on the couch. I like staying over at his house because he doesn't make me eat dumb stuff. I also get to stay up as late as I want and he lets me look at his books. He's got a lot of books; I mean, not just dirty ones, but different kinds. And they are everywhere: on the tables, and stacked on the floor and all over his desk and bookshelves. He always tells me that it's a shame that no one reads anymore and that everyone is stupid. He's really funny.

One time I lost my Mom at JCPenney. I always sit in the middle of the clothes racks because I get tired of shopping all day and my legs hurt. I usually watch for her to stop sliding the hangers, but this time it didn’t stop. When I peeked out she was gone. That lumpy thing happened in my throat, but I didn’t want to be a cry baby. I hate that lumpy thing. Like that time I sat on a tack. I tried to be cool and smile through the pain, but then I had to lean to one side and yank it out without making a peep.

I blew out the candles but the wish hadn't come true. Mom and Dad were still standing far apart. I hadn't expected the wish to work. It hadn't for the past two years, and I was starting to think it would never work.
I opened some presents and pretended to be excited. Then it was time for Dad to leave. As I watched him walk down the street my Mom told me he was going to go have a cold one at the corner bar to celebrate my birthday. I wanted to go with him.