Bunchland

What we’re reading today:

1. A quarter of American moms go back to work within two months of giving birth, which is really too bad. Ideal maternity leave: 40 weeks?

2. How to explain to your 12-year-old that Santa isn’t real. (Alternatively, you could get Rebecca’s 3-year-old to break the bad news.)

3. Speaking of different cultural holiday traditions, here’s one interfaith family talking about how Judaism became more important after kids came into the picture.

4. This headline actually made us laugh out loud: Striving for gift parity among siblings. Ahh! I know right? Heaven forbid you spend $25 more on Grace than Nathan… except that you got such a great deal on Nathan’s big item so it’s actually worth $30 more than Grace’s etc etc. Will someone freak out Christmas morning if they suspect you didn’t get them as many gifts? (We would think not)  Read more...

Ground control to Major Tom

Perhaps a little darker than your typical kids’ book, but aren’t many of the best and most classic children’s stories on the dark side?

Kitchener based illustrator Andrew Kolb took the Bowie song line by line to create this really stunning kids’ book. As one might expect, the book follows Major Tom launching into space, floating in a most peculiar way and then losing contact with Ground Control. Kolb had been offering it as a free pdf download on his site, but despite his not making money on it, some legal action has been threatened or something. We’ll follow up on this.

For now, you can check out Kolb’s awesome illustrations along with an interview from him on Wired.com

Image via Wired.com