At the tail end of July, The New York Times “Style” section featured a long piece on the Junie B Jones series of books for young readers. It seems that like everything else about parenting these days Junie B. is controversial, so much so that parents get really exercised about her – they’re either ecstatic or vitriolic about books written in the voice of a five year old. They either love them for amusing their kids or detest them as if the books are ruining them for life.

Now I know that Mommy Track’d has a mommy lit section on its bookshelf. I know, too, that the management of Mommy Track’d happens to harbor a weakness for chick lit. But as the site’s resident reviewer, I’ve pledged to be honest. So let me be blunt.

When a novel is told in the first person, our impulse is to sympathize with the narrator. She is, after all, the consciousness propelling the story. But she isn’t always its conscience, and that means we shouldn’t always trust the teller of the tale. This is especially tricky when the narrator is bitter and angry at the world because her two-day old baby daughter has just died.

The problem with most “anti-princess” books is that they try too hard. Feisty little girls slay dragons; fairy princesses insist that their tutus won’t get in the way of their playing soccer. We have nothing against these efforts, exactly, only it often seems as though they protest too much.

Did you know that penguins mate for life and that when mama gets pregnant she and papa penguin take turns sitting on the egg until it hatches?