I am all mellow today and have been reading mythology -- Prometheus and Pandora-- by Thomas Bulfinch. I am hoping that I can make myself read a chapter or two per day.

While I was reading I was listening to my winamp but Nas kept coming up. He's great but kind of distracting.

So reading the mythology reminded me of how I learned my first myth story, that of Persephone, and of one of my favorite educational childrens toys, the Show 'N Tell Viewer:

It was a record player that also automatically played filmstrips and had little books with it.

I had the myth of Persephone as one of my sets.

When I was in sixth grade, for independent reading assignments my school had hundreds of the little booklets and we read them and answered the questions at the end, but they didn't have the actual Show 'N Tell Viewer and film strips (unless they kept them hid somewhere).

Anyway, I think this thing contributed to my higher reading level and encyclopedic interest in everything.

If I ever have kids I am going to track one down (wouldn't be impossible I guess, since I found this pic on the 'net, right?) and let them learn to use it (with my supervision!) on rainy days.

If any of y'all ever run across the books let me know. Seriously. Even if I don't have kids, the little books were cool.