Dara-Lynn Weiss, who infamously outlined putting her 7-year-old daughter on a diet in the pages of Vogue, is promoting her new book The Heavy: a mother, a daughter, a diet, without her daughter at her side. 

I don't know anyone who truly takes parenting for granted. We all try our best but have occasional lapses in judgment, organization and even rationality. But the one thing that I try hard to hold on to is my sense of how ridiculous and fleeting this whole parenting stint is.

Granted, some mothers on the schoolyard are more invested in being perfect than the rest of us. Some parents get their kids to play piano and practice, do their homework, make their beds and speak politely to their younger siblings. Some parents never let their guard down.

And there is the rest of us.

It's a strange thing to say that I am hopeful that my kids will fail and not just once, but a few times this year. It goes against what we are supposed to want as parents -- but it turns out that for our kids to succeed, they have to learn to fail.

This article in the Globe and Mail this weekend was a Q & A with author Paul Trough about the need for kids to be truly challenged, because failing and recovering from these challenges is what gives kids -- and adults-- what they need to become successful. The article (and I'm sure the book) is very interesting and also touches on the importance of attachment at infancy and the idea of grit.

There are reports that Christian Grey has fathered a baby boom.

Well not exactly fathered, more like inspired. 

I haven't read the Hunger Games or Twilight and, I may as well be honest, not very much of Harry Potter either. I'm a huge reader and a bit of a book snob; there is so much great literary fiction going on, why would I read books meant for teens?

Especially since I can see the movies. (Though, I haven't seen any of the Twilight films.)

It is Family Literacy Day. Which kind of begs the question: isn't everyday family literacy day?

Does a day go by in your family without talking about books or reading? Or at least yelling at your kids to get their reading done?

How many times have you as a mother thought: someone should really invent [fill in blank], life would be so much better and they would make a million dollars.

Well, some moms have gone out and done that and while most are not making a million dollars, they are finding that being a "mompreneur" adds another dimension to their lives that they were craving. And their products are hitting the target market as well as getting lost of buzz. (Check out Candace Alper of Name Your Tunes in People Magazine!).

If I really wanted to mess my kids up I would self-publish some books and leave them lying around the house. One of them would be called "Maggie Goes On a Diet and Becomes Popular", another might be "How To Look Like Barbie" and "How to Exercise to the Point Of Exhaustion So You Can Have a Killer Butt Before The Age of 12".

Luckily, the first one about Maggie going on a diet is ready to hit the store shelves so I don't have do a mock-up of it. You can see the cover here, with a poor chunky Maggie staring wistfully into a mirror holding a too-small pink dress. Poor Maggie.

I had a rough couple of years in primary school. My grade three teacher disliked me (who dislikes an 8-year-old?); she had put me in the lowest reading group and routinely yelled at me for my poor handwriting.

Sounds silly doesn't it? The lowest reading group? But it wasn't silly to me - an avid and advanced reader at the age of eight. She chose to focus on the fact that I couldn't do bubble writing with hearts for dots over the "i" and said I needed help. At best it was demoralizing, at worst it made me loathe school and myself.

 The best thing that I can say about my grade four teacher was that she let us listen to "If You Think I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart while we brushed her long, golden hair.

I think that reading is cool again. That's a huge relief to me because I like to be a little cool and I like to read; and I really wanted my kids to love reading it the way that I do. But it is hard to be a reader when the messages all around you are that reading is for dweebs.

I don't think that I could have gotten through my elementary years without Anne of Green Gables who taught me it was okay to love words and be a little different -- and introduced me to my first pretend boyfriend: Gilbert (sigh). The Phantom Tollbooth put images and words to emotions and predicaments in such a real way that I still use the examples.

There is a plethora of choice out there when it comes to books. This list is a great start (we have read almost everything on it) but a knowledgeable bookseller or librarian who will work with your kid to find the right book is indispensable. The  magic that happens when a kid finds "the book" cannot be duplicated by any screen.

So what holds a special place on our bookshelves? (Note: the list changes weekly)