There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales

Written By: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

First line: During the war, a colonel received a letter from his wife.

Why you should read this book: The scary fairy tales of this anthology are overcast, rather than dark, existing in a landscape that mirrors the shadowy reality of Soviet Russia, with its dearth, privation, and fear, but through which a single beam of hopeful sunlight may pierce. Through the collection, ghosts of dead loved ones appear in unexpected forms or places to offer succor to the living or easy passage to the next world, while soldiers and mothers struggle through confusing foreign regions that do not quite match up with their understanding of the shape of the universe. There is much beauty to be found in the gritty unreality and the bright passion of love that run through this translated collection.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You suspect your neighbor has been trying to kill your baby.

Flashforward

Written by: Robert J. Sawyer

First line: The control building for CERN's Large Hadron Collider was new: it had been authorized in A.D. 2004 and completed in 2006.

Why you should read this book: The search for the Higgs Boson goes horribly wrong, resulting in everyone on earth blacking out for almost two minutes; many people experience visions of themselves twenty-one years in the future, and many people die in the blackout. Scientists Llyod Simcoe and Theo Procopides need to contemplate the results of their experiment, including their own culpability in the deaths of millions and their beliefs in the immutability of the future: Theo must work to solve his own murder, while Lloyd worries incessantly about an impending divorce from a woman he hasn't even married yet. Some interesting discussion of free will and physics in a sort of light speculative novel that comes off as Michael Crichton on laughing gas.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The writing is pretty bad, with distracting and redundant exposition and stuffy dialog, and some of the science fiction elements have not held up over time. Occasionally, a passage which is clearly meant to demonstrate the author's efforts to embrace a multi-cultural perspective come off as racist. With the exception of a few themes and elements, this novel has almost nothing to do with the television show it inspired.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Written by: Carl Sagan

First line: It was a blustery fall day in 1939.

Why you should read this book: Popular and charismatic scientist, author, and television personality, Carl Sagan bemoans the gullibility of modern audiences and advocates greater funding for science education and experimentation as a bulwark against ignorance, superstitious hysteria, and pseudoscience. Along the way, he advocates for the scientific method, debunks most every popular belief about aliens, UFOs, and New Age thinking, and includes, for the reader's convenience, his "Baloney Detection" kit: a detailed explanation of various types of logical fallacies that impede intelligent thinking about the world. Advocating for equal parts wonder and skepticism, this book is a call for reason in an age where reason is increasingly held in disdain.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You only need one book to tell you about the nature of reality, and you think it was written by an ephemeral, bearded old white guy who lives in the sky.

The Wolf Girls: An Unsolved Mystery from History

Written by: Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple

First line: When I grow up, I want to be a detective, just like my dad.

Why you should read this book: The true story of the so-called Wolf Girls brought to an Indian orphanage in 1920 is dissected by an objective child searching for the truth. Each page contains some of three different elements: a yellow box telling the story as it is known, a white notebook page withe the child narrator's explanations, and a series of colored boxes containing definitions of unusual words. Were two children really raised by wolves until rescued by a kindly missionary? This book asks readers to examine the evidence and decide for themselves.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You prefer legends.

Three-Martini Family Vacation: A Field Guide to Intrepid Parenting

Written by: Christie Mellor

First line: Raising children can be an incredibly time-consuming, often thankless pursuit, and although it is not without its rewards, we certainly could all use a little more time for ourselves.

Why you should read this book: With overt sarcasm, the author preaches to the choir in her castigation of overindulgent helicopter parenting, suggesting a return to intelligent limits on childish behavior and a refusal to hand children more power than their little minds can reasonably use. Targeting those adults who insist that every activity be child-friendly, that children be welcomed, regardless of behavior, into adult situations, that children's smallest whims be entertained at everyone else's expense, and that the child's world trumps any adult needs, this book offers a few sensible suggestions, couched in humorous garb, for reclaiming ones adulthood while teaching children not to whine, throw temper tantrums, or hijack the conversation when presented with unfamiliar foods or a few hours free from video technologies. Equally light-hearted and darkly ominous, this guide for those who need vacations from their children offers an interesting day trip far away from the world of juice boxes, baby sitters, and interrupted meals consisting of pizza, pasta, and white bread.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your world revolves around your precious offspring's every whim, and you can't imagine why your miraculous progeny should be denied any little thing its heart desires.

Star Wars: Spaceships

Written by: Anonymous (for a good reason, I bet)

First line: Imperial Star Destroyer. This Spaceship is big and has smaller spaceships inside.

Why you should read this book: I am someone incredulous that this book exists. It's a baby board book detailing different spacecraft from the Star Wars universe, and the noises they make. It has shiny illustrations, sturdy pages for your infant to chew on, and very little relevance in terms of useful concepts that are typically included in such early learning material.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you think this is appropriate reading material for your baby, you are an enormous geek, or George Lucas's personal yes man, or a slave to capitalism.

How Good Do We Have to Be?

Written by: Harold S. Kushner

First lines: I have been thinking about the ideas expressed in this book for a long time. Even as a child, I was bothered by the biblical story of the Garden of Eden. A God who punished people so severely for breaking one arbitrary rule was not a God I wanted to believe in, especially since the story seemed to suggest that Adam and Eve had no knowledge of what good and bad meant before they broke the rule.

Why you should read this book: Drawing on biblical stories, classic literature, personal anecdotes, and other sources, the acclaimed rabbi confronts the persistent Judeo-Christian belief that human beings ought to shoulder the massive burdens of shame and guilt for the crime of being imperfect. Reframing the events in the Garden of Eden allows him to cast the divine creator as a loving and accepting being who wants humanity to rise to a level of consciousness beyond that of mere animals, and the taint of original sin as no more than the human belief that there is not enough love to go around. Instead of wallowing in shame and condemnation, he argues, we must accept that we, and those around us, can never be perfect, and should not be expected to live up to an unattainable standard, but rather can only do our best, with the understanding that we only have to be as good as we can be.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Religious guilt got you where you are today.

The Treasure Bath

Created by: Dan Andreasen

Why you should check out this book: It's a wordless journey for young readers that begins with an eager preschooler helping his mother bake a cake, which results in his chocolate-covered self being deposited, against his will, into a warm, bubbly bath, where he takes an underwater journey, culminating in an eventual and unexpected scrubbing by a variety of helpful sea creature. At the end of the story, despite his reluctance, the boy is clean, clad in pajamas with his hair combed, and, of course, there is cake. A perfect story for dirty boys and for pre-readers eager to enjoy books on their own.

Why you shouldn't check out this book: You know how to read and you enjoy bathing yourself.

Winne the Pooh

Written by: A.A. Milne

First line: Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.

Why you should read this book: These are the original adventures of everyone's favorite bear of Very Little Brain but Very Large Heart with a Very Great Love of Hunny, along with his friends Christopher Robin, Piglet, Owl, Kanga, Roo, Eeyore, Rabbit, and all of Rabbit's Friends and Relations. Included here are Pooh's early adventures as a raincloud, his unfortunate sojourn in Rabbit's doorway, his discoveries of Eeyore's tail, the fearsome Heffalump, and the elusive North Pole, and his Daring and Praiseworthy Rescue of Piglet. Gentle, humorous, and loving stories appropriate for people of all ages, which have stood the test of time, despite the creative meddling of certain massive multinational conglomerates intent on Commodifying Culture for the purpose of Printing Licensed Characters on Cheap Merchandise for Profit.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you're looking for Tigger, you won't find him here. This is not that kind of story.

Oh, What a Busy Day!

Written by: Gyo Fujikawa

First line: Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

Why you should read this book: This high interest book for small children follows a group of multicultural kids through a busy day and a busy year, illustrating hundreds of ways for kids to play, eat, make friends, learn manners, and entertain themselves in every weather condition. Mixed in with the descriptions are bits of poetry, classic nursery rhymes, other tidbits of enduring oral tradition, a normalization of communal togetherness that transcends race, a combination of the fantastic and the mundane that forms the child's inner world, and a palpable joie de vivre that seems absent from kids who spend all their free time in the company of video technologies. Just a really great long-standing work for young people.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You already know what you are going to be when you grow up.