I wonder if little October Adelaide* Eggers Vida will get reviewed by her parents' magazine.
So far, on its website, The Believer has published reviews of seven children, ranging in age from four to thirteen. Here is an excerpt from the review of Aidan Grundy-Reiner of Berkeley:
Consider, if you will, the following persistent generalization: Children are adorable buckets of love. Now, youth across America and worldwide have made a lot of progress in recent years towards dispelling this stereotype. Through wanton violence and gross obesity, children have tried valiantly to show us the full range of their capabilities. Nevertheless, the image persists. Whenever we begin to have doubts, some little whippersnapper somewhere does some little thingósqueezes a tattered teddy bear, mispronounces the Pledge of Allegiance, whateveróand our hearts melt all over again, and the relentless pigeonholing marches onward.No pressure, October.Case in point: Aidan Grundy-Reiner. Five years old, with a bouncy head of unruly cornsilk, quick blue eyes and a large and unpredictable vocabulary, he runs and romps, joyfully discovering the world in all its many-splendored glory. Aidan is the child equivalent of a money-loving Jew, a violin-playing Korean, a melancholy Dane. We try to be good, open-minded twenty-first-centurions, but certain young people... itís as if they have no social conscience.
The Believer - Non-Book Reviews [believermag.com]
* while the reporter who broke this story, Lindsayism, got the last name dealio right, she missed the middle/safety name, you know, just in case the kid's preschool class has five other Octobers. Thanks, SantaFe for the update.
