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In Midwest City, Oklahoma, on Air Depot Rd, just north of Reno, there's a mini-mall with a place called Ron's Chili House. Ron's Chili House makes a cheeseburger that has a huge half-Owen's-sausage-half-ground-round patty, pepper-jack cheese, sauteed onions, raw onions, lettuce, tomato (always a good tomato) and pickle. They also make fresh-cut french fries that are divine. If you're in the area, and anyone going through on I-40 can get off on Air Depot and find the place, stop in.

NOW AND THEN I get two of their cheeseburgers, a large order of cole slaw, and two full orders of fries, and we split them among the five of us (and we all are quite full, believe me.) I don't do it every day.

Reading light fiction is like eating a greasy wonderful cheeseburger. It ain't daily fare. For the kids I keep a lot of non-fiction around, a careful selection of appropriate Great Literature, and quite a lot of other quality fiction (Narnia is one. So are Heinlein juveniles.) We read scriptures every day, however. We read nonfiction most of the time. We emphasize math, science, history, and we're about to launch into a study of Thomas Sowell around here--I'm reading the books and I'll talk with the kids about what I'm reading as we go. The daily fare is the healthy stuff. If you are getting enough of what your body needs, the greasy cheeseburger now and then isn't going to hurt you. I didn't ever let Pokemon in my house because I decided it was totally nutritionally empty. Harry Potter serves as a launching point for all kinds of family discussions...whether owls could be trained, or whether the books themselves are evil. It's the conversation about it that matters. If you just let your kids do all of this learning on their own without teaching them to THINK about it, it doesn't matter what they read, they will not get much out of it that is good.

A 4th grader like mine who has read Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, as well as other quality "chapter books," dozens of books on astronomy, much of the Bible and (for us) the Book of Mormon, is not going to be flummoxed or upset by Harry Potter. He doesn't need to be charmed into reading--he already reads.

He likes broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussel's sprouts too, because he's always eaten them.