A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of doing a presentation at a local Barnes & Noble superstore about my new kids science book MICRO MANIA. Most things went according to plan. Everyone yelled, “Eeeewwww!” when I projected the huge photo of the fungus-infected foot, sang along with my musical spoof, the “Germ-Spangled Banner”, and asked some terrific questions. (When I explained, for example, that all the microscopic life on Earth weighs MORE than all the visible creatures, one kid asked, “Does that include all the microbes that live inside the visible creatures?”). What didn’t go according to plan was my own children’s behavior before and after my talk. During the talk, they were paying attention and seemed truly interested. But before and after, they were… well, rather than summarize what happened, here’s the whole story, which I told in my latest parenting column for Sesame Workshop (see PDF below).

Dazed by Discipline? Oh, Behave Yourself!

If you have any parenting tips or advice about discipline to share, please post your thoughts below.

The prolific and talented Seymour Simon (“the dean of children’s science writers” – NY Times) invited me to contribute to his blog. My first entry is called “It’s a Small World, After All.” (Hoping I don’t get sued by either Disney or the B.L.C. — Bacteria Litigation Consortium) In honor of Earth Day, I shared some of the dazzling facts I discovered when writing my latest book, MICRO MANIA.

The brilliant satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer is 82 years old today! Yes, the guy who penned the dark ditty “When You Are Old and Gray” long ago is a senior citizen himself. (Many years ago, when Tom turned 53, he quipped, “I prefer to think of it as 11 Celsius.)

To celebrate his talent and influence on my life, I thought I’d share a few personal stories about one of my childhood heroes, as well as links to classic numbers from the 1950s and ’60s, such as “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” “The Masochism Tango” and “We Will All Go Together When We Go” (In the 70’s, the producers of the children’s show The Electric Company persuaded Tom to come out of songwriting retirement to write educational songs such as “Silent E.”) When he fully retired a few years later, he commented that once Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, satire could go no further.

I first became entranced with Tom’s songs when I was about 4 or 5. I remember listening to the 33 rpm album “That Was the Year That Was” over and over, getting a kick out of the lively piano playing, his sardonic delivery, and the stream of clever rhymes. As I kid, I knew very little about the Catholic Church but loved listening to Tom’s song Tom’s irreverent song “The Vatican Rag.” (I couldn’t understand why my parents said this song would offend my beloved, elderly, religious babysitter, so I shouldn’t play it for her.)

On long car trips when I was maybe 10 or so, I recall my mom singing to me Tom’s “The Irish Ballad” and “I Hold Your Hand in Mine” – both of which delighted me with their grizzly, gross humor. (Before I forget, I just learned that there’s a brand new DVD devoted to Tom’s music. If you a fan as I am, check it out.)

While at Oberlin College, I wrote Tom a letter to see if I might work with him on songwriting during the month-long “winter term.” In the letter, for his birthday, I wrote him a parody of “So Long, Tom.” I began my letter with this sentence: “I first heard your voice 19 years ago, which is odd when you consider I’m 18 years old.” I explained that when I was in utero, my mother had attended a lecture on mathematics education that he gave at Harvard University. I learned that as funny as Tom was as a performer, as a math teacher he was rather dry, tending to avoid eye contact and reading out of the textbook. To this day, my father — a retired professor who taught the very same course at Harvard a year after Tom did — gloats about how he was funnier than Tom in the classroom. Ah, but could Tom sing “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” off-key and with as much enthusiasm as my dad?! There are limits to Tom’s genius.

But I digress. Tom did respond to my letter — I’ve saved his warm, witty response, and perhaps will post it online some day. He wasn’t interested in devoting a month to my musical studies but did invite me to visit his home in Cambridge, Mass. We chatted for several hours about musical theater, trivia about his lyrics, and more.

I’ll leave you with this gem. A few years ago, I learned that another hero of mine Stephen Sondheim went to the same summer camp as Tom Lehrer as a boy. To honor musical theater producer Cameron Mackintosh, the two reunited. Check out this delightful video.

I’d love to hear any Tom Lehrer related memories you care to share.

Happy Birthday, Tom! Here’s to many, many more!

Hello, fellow chocoholics! (I know you’re out there, I can sense you drooling…sorry, my site isn’t scratch-n-sniff yet) Over the weekend, I whipped up my umpteenth batch of chocolate chip cookie dough. Against all odds, most of this batter actually ended up as baked cookies! If you’re like me, one of the main reasons to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch is to eat heaping spoonfuls of this cool, creamy, sweet, crunchy stuff!

While writing my latest book Micro Mania, I researched rumors that eating raw cookie dough is bad for your health. The culprit behind his rumor is one of the ingredients in most Toll House dough: RAW EGGS. Raw eggs have the potential of containing a charming bacterium called Salmonella — here in a close-up photo, colorized for extra yuckiness…

Infection from Salmonella can cause a variety of lovely symptoms including abdominal cramps, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, chills, fever or a headache. (By the way, did you know this bacterium has nothing to do with fish? It was named after Daniel Elmer Salmon, a veterinarian.)

Many of you raw dough junkies out there are probably thinking, “That’s weird. I’ve been eating cookie dough by the spoonful for YEARS, and have never become sick from it. What’s up with that??”

Turns out that the odds of contracting Salmonella from raw eggs are incredibly, amazingly, ridiculously small. How small exactly? According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 1 in every 30,000 eggs are contaminated by Salmonella. If you’re still worried that eating cookie dough is dangerous, check out this fun short video by Lenore Skenazy, author of an excellent book for parents Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry.

Any thoughts on this? Any great cookie recipes to share? Please post below!

April Fools’ Day is almost here… And I can’t wait! Thought you’d enjoy my latest parenting column for Sesame Workshop – Sesame Newsletter “April Fools Fun” — in which I recount some of the recent pranks that have been pulled on me by my kids, Finian and Olivia. Hope you find it enlightening and inspirational. As always, feel free to add your Comments below. I’d love to hear of any wonderful practical jokes that you’ve pulled — or that have been pulled on you. Before I go, I stumbled on this short video of a sweet baby getting “pranked” by his cruel parents –The Art of the Tart (What cracks me up is that the baby keeps going for the lemon, hoping that it might actually test better on the second or third try.)

Jordan and His Favorite Pranksters

A nutritionist in Denver, Colorado, Joann Bruso, concerned about the preservatives in fast food did a fun experiment. She bought a Happy Meal from McDonalds — then left it out in her office for ONE YEAR. Check out the shockingly similar “before” and “after” photos:

A few days ago, my writer friend Allen Mogol forwarded me a terrific blog entry written by Peter Sagal, hilarious host of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” the NPR quiz show. In it, Peter gushes about the pleasures of reading ALL the Harry Potter books aloud to his daughters (all 4,224 pages!)

Then Peter goes onto say…wait, why am I summarizing Peter’s wonderful words?; you should read them yourself: THE DAD WHO READ.  Anyway, I found his comments so moving that I was inspired to respond, and share my own experiences reading HP to my children. (see Comment #23, which is copied below)

Super blog entry – it made my scar burn with pleasure. I, too, am a dad who loves to read the Potter books to my children. My son Finian is almost nine, and we’re in the middle of the interminable Book 5 (Order of the Phoenix). Reading the stories to him in the early morning and at bedtime is one of the highlights of my day. We have a strict rule that we can’t see the movie of a particular story until we’ve finished the book. It motivates us – and it avoids spoiling any of the surprises. One thing no one has mentioned so far is that the audiobook versions of the Potter series read by actor Jim Dale are friggin’ AMAZING. This is actually the way I experienced the first few books many years ago -before I had kids. Whenever I try to invent voices for the various characters, I am more often channeling my inner Jim Dale rather than lifting vocal quirks from the movie versions. And I totally agree — trying to do Hagrid’s voice is a blast. I’ll leave you with this amusing tidbit — my daughter Olivia (age 5) sometimes joins us when I read the Potter books to her brother. Hilarious the bits she picks up. We were listening to the HAIRSPRAY sound track in the car, and she thought the opening number was “Good Morning, Voldemort” (vs. the actual “Good Morning, Baltimore”).