Another great blog

I have to turn you onto this amazing blog called RatSoap written by a 10-year-old girl who lives down the street from me. Her mom was in book club with me until two months ago when she and her husband packed up the two girls (ages 10 and 6) and headed to South America for a year abroad. They are going to be living in Chile where Alex, the dad, was born. The girl's website starts out as an attempt to translate Anna Karenina into a cartoon for kids:

I was reading Harry Potter #2 for the sixth time when my Dad asked, "Aren't you tired of reading that thing? Why don't you read something more...MONUMENTAL?" He suggested Anna Karenina, by someone called Leo Tolstoy.
I'd never heard of Tolstoy.
So Dad gave me a copy of Karenina, and it didn't do much for me. Tolstoy's no Beverly Cleary.
Then I thought: Maybe it's not Tolstoy's fault, and all "Anna Karenina" needs is a simple translation to make it more interesting to the children of the Age of Potter.

But two entries into her project she realizes that her dad was serious when he said they were moving to Chile.

Although Dad informed us a few months ago that we might be moving, the reality of it didn't hit until today---when he started "organizing" (a.k.a. throwing away) our precious first-grade and kindergarten notebooks.
"Can't take them with us," he said. Too many. Too bulky. We have turned into pack rats, and someone needs to get rid of the junk.
It's because we're not just moving down the block. We are leaving the COUNTRY!

The site evolves into a blog of her travels, and I am telling you this girl is really funny. Her grasp of sarcasim and irony is well beyond her years. There are great anticdotes as they travel by boat around Cape Horn.

RJE lost one of her top teeth. She put it under the pillow expecting the Tooth Fairy to come with money and chocolate. The next morning, she found an Argentine peso and a tiny bar of chocolate. Dad said that it was not the Tooth Fairy but the Tooth Penguin, because the tooth fairy doesn’t come this far south. Unfortunately for RJE, the Tooth Penguin turned out to be very stingy: An Argentine peso is only 33 U.S. cents.

Anyway - I highly recommend you start with the introduction and then read "The Beginning" working your way forward from there. Get back to me when you've had a chance to check it out and let me know what you think. I'm seriously thinking about writing an article about this for the local paper.