Another day in school

Dear You,

If you work it right, each day of life is a lesson. Each person you encounter is your teacher. With my granddaughter Emily visiting from Long Island, I am once again reminded of this.

Emily, like me, loves to read. Unlike me, she reads really, really fast. More importantly, she reads -- and introduces me to -- stuff that would have escaped my notice. This time she brought me her copy of "The Twelve Kingdoms" by Fuyumi Ono. It's fantasy, a narrative and related to other forms from Japan: anime and manga. Not my taste, I would have said two days ago, but now I'm well into the story and its fictional world. Lesson: (excuse the cliche) don't judge books by covers. (How often do I need to learn this lesson? Apparently, on a regular basis.)

Emily has much more to teach me. Indeed, I could write eleven more blogs -- one for each of the children who call me Grandpa. Each one who has crawled into my lap has brought information from a world that no one else but they inhabit, news from places I might otherwise never have visited.