Homophones and how to piss me off

I finally bit the bullet and took the kids on a whim to get a library card. Ahem. PAY for a library card, since we have no home library and have to go to the neighboring township for that. Believe it or not, that was one thing that made me hesitate about buying our house. That and there are no sidewalks. I'm a city kid. I like houses with sidewalks for ya know, walking and little ones to ride bikes. And a library to call my own.

But now that I've had to consciously pay money for it (as opposed to being all wrapped up in taxey stuff that I so don't even begin to understand), you better believe we are gonna use that little piece of plastic.

I figured this is what I need to do to keep my kids interested in reading without going totally broke and getting buried under new books. We kinda hit a lull in reading our books, so it was time to kick start everyone again.

Except for one of the books that Nathaniel picked out. IT HAD A MISTAKE IN IT!!

It said this adorable, annoying little chipmunk was going to... ugh I hate typing it... PEDDLE her bike to her friend's house.

Now that would easily slip past spell check since the word is spelled correctly, but I sincerely hope that publishers use more than that to put a book into print. For small children still learning the English language to see. And absorb. And use again and again, because they saw it in a book at the library AND THEREFORE IT MUST BE RIGHT.

Seriously. Books are supposed to be better than the internet. You can't believe anything you read online (except this fantastic blog) but if it's in a book, gosh darn it, it's gotta be right.

I want to hide that stupid cheery chipmunk until we take the rest of the books back to the library so I don't have to read it again. And you better believe I will be avoiding all of the other books in that series.

OK, totally throwing this author under the bus... it's the Wickleville Woods series. "Heidi's Hike," specifically. Not only is it a dumb story, it's mis-teaching homophones. I can't endorse that sort of behavior.


Would I be off my rocker to take the book in and be like, look Miss Children's Librarian, this book is WRONG and you shouldn't be letting kids read it?!

It wouldn't be the first time somebody told me I was crazy...