Everyone reads Dr. Seuss, Judy Blume, Shel Silverstein and Maurice Sendak books growing up, but there are thousands more children’s authors out there. With so much competition, some authors choose to cover unique subjects in an attempt to stand out from the crowd.

1. The Illicit Drug Trade

Do your kids need to know more about the drug industry? Well then, The House That Crack Built might be just right for educating them about everything from the workers struggling in Colombian fields to drug dealers to homeless crackheads. While the book intends to show the evils of the drug trade, it also does a great job at showing that becoming a drug kingpin can get you one heck of a house.

2. Weed

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Today’s Wednesday Wordplay challenge at the mentalfloss.com Brain Game offers a list of five commonly-misspelled words that begin with the letter “P.” Four are spelled correctly; one is not.

Just ONE of the five words in the following list is misspelled. Identify the culprit:

PAMPHLET
PERSISTENT
PLAYWRIGHT
PRESCENCE
PRONOUNCE

Just Desserts is the theme encompassing this week’s 5 Questions quizzes. Wednesday, we’ll all have a piece of: Pie

In 1989, Kim Basinger collaborated with her then-boyfriend Prince on a pop album. The title was never officially released. After a quick listen, it’s obvious why.
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When lightning strikes power stations: 10 incredible snapshots.
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When and how did the phrase “blue collar worker” come about?
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Virgin America provides extra leg room for its first-class passengers, as well as billionaire Richard Branson’s face carved into their ice cubes.
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R.I.P.: Composer Joel Goldsmith, age 54.
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The literal bacon burger: 100 percent ground deep-fried bacon on a sesame bun with a side of jalapeno poppers.
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The original menu at McDonald’s offered “Full-Flavor Orange Drink” for only 10 cents.
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Before One World Trade Center reigned supreme, six skyscrapers were previously crowned kings of the Manhattan skyline.
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After rounding up an all-star cast, HBO decided to cancel its adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections. The flashbacks and flash-forwards were apparently too confusing for boob tube fare.
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The non-profit organization Responsible Young Drivers ran a texting-and-driving test on a handful of teenagers. They didn’t do so well.
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Meanwhile in California, police have arrested 37-year-old Obiwan Kenobi for a hit and run multi-car pileup.

When it comes to strong ladies on television, there are lots of examples: Murphy Brown, Maude, and that girl played by Marlo Thomas are just a few notably badass fictional female characters. One of the toughest, though, is White House Press Secretary CJ Cregg, played by Allison Janney on West Wing. Here are some of her finer moments.

Technically, I outrank you

CJ does not support Josh’s decision to participate in internet commenting.

Did you take an awkward pill?

Another excellent CJ line: “We’re gonna need some people left in the building to, you know, run the country.” (more…)

Last year I asked you to put my party playlists in chronological order. Now I’m putting a geographical spin on things. I’ll give you a snippet of a few songs — it’s up to you to put them in order by their content. You’ll need a world map and a boombox.

And remember, I’m putting them in order by the lyric, not the song title. So if a hypothetical snippet refers to France but comes from a song called something else, I’m asking about France.

Take the Quiz: Track List: Geography Edition

Meanwhile, at the Bat Cave, the Bat Symbol has been changing. Since its first appearance in 1941, designers have tweaked the icon emblazoned on Batman’s chest and appearing on various Batphernalia, adapting it for each new iteration of the Batman story. In this video, you can watch the Bat Symbol morph through many versions. Watch as the symbol stretches, contracts, and develops new angles for each era. (I chose to mute the U2 soundtrack, for what it’s worth.)

For a non-video treatment of the same subject, check out Andrei Robu’s “Changes of the Bat Symbol.” See also: Bat-Signal on Wikipedia.

What’s Your Favorite Bat Symbol?

For me it has to be the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film version, featured on so many iconic tee shirts of my youth. A close second is the groovy 1966 Batman TV version, with its broadly scooping curves. Quick, Robin, to the Bat Comments Section for further geeky discussion!

(Via Devour.)

Lab image via Shutterstock

Trauma, that’s what. It’s the smell of chemical defenses and first aid. The fresh, “green” scent of a just-mowed lawn is the lawn trying to save itself from the injury you just inflicted.

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This is the first edition of our new afternoon links round-up. The problem is, we need a name. Something to make it stand out from the 27,000 afternoon links round-ups that came before it. Leave a comment with your best suggestion. If yours is chosen you’ll be swooped up in a whirlwind of overnight fame, where your every waking moment will be consumed with fanciful pleasure the likes of which you’ve never imagined. Plus you’ll win a shirt.

I’ve Got Good News and Bad News…

The good news is that, despite the absurd number of reality shows indicating otherwise, Americans may actually be getting smarter. The bad news is that while they get smarter they might get uglier. Or will they?

But You Know What They Say About Beauty. It’s All In the Eye of The Beholder. Or People Magazine. Or A Scientist With A Tape Measure.

Beyonce may have just been named World’s Most Beautiful Woman by People, but, according to science, the world’s most beautiful face belongs to an 18-year old British woman named Florence Colgate. How do you determine that? You just rely on a simple, totally-not-at-all-dehumanizing set of criteria:

“The ratio of the distance between her ears to the distance between her pupils is nearly 2:1 — the scientific ideal. Furthermore, the distance between her eyes to her mouth is just under a third of the distance from her hairline to her chin — another measure of perfect pulchritude.”

One Reason to Be Excited Today: Old VHS Tapes Sometimes Turn Up Mind-Blowing 80s Relics Like This

Splitsider was good enough to share this with us recently – as well as Alan Thicke’s memories of making this 80s masterpiece. If you want to watch the entire thing, check out the rest on mittdawson’s YouTube page.

“A Picture Is Worth a Bunch of Words That Describe Exactly What the Picture Is Supposed to Be of, But There’s No Actual Picture”.

Instead of this camera taking a picture (because that would just be dumb), it instead just gives you a printout where it explains in text what the picture would look like. Because who wants a picture of your kids experiencing a quintessential childhood moment when you could instead just have a piece of paper that says:

“A small child sitting on the lap of an obese man with a large white beard.”

Happy Birthday, Wes Anderson

-I like your nurse’s uniform, guy.
-These are O.R. scrubs.
-O R they?

We’ve posted photos of gorgeous libraries before, but we just can’t get enough of these stunning book repositories. For those of you who share this opinion, here are fifteen of the most beautiful libraries throughout Europe, in no particular order.

Trinity College Library, Ireland

Aside from being absolutely gorgeous, with two story dark wooden arches, this is also the largest library in all of Ireland. It serves as the country’s copyright library, where a copy of all new books and periodicals must be sent when they apply for copyright protection. The library is also home to the famous Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks around the year 800.

Image courtesy of Irish Welcome Tours’ Flickr stream.

Bristol Central Library, England

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