The combination was irresistable.

Kino vouchers from the girls, Ange calling me for a shop-out (she has the Kino card), and that shop-out is a day after my birthday!

I bought:

The Game by Neil Strauss
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill
The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten by Julian Baggini

Earlier that month I'd picked up Einstein Never Used Flash Cards by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Diane Eyer, three PhDs writing on evidence-based parenting. Their premise is that, as I understand it, children learn on their own from play (with encouragement from their parents) and structured learning is unneccessary and even harmful to their (particularly, creative) development. That is what I have always felt instinctively, as one brought up on play. Childhood needs to be returned to children.