Leo made up a new word today: franxious. It describes our dog when he knows we are about to go out in the car without him: frantic and anxious. It also describes me more often than I would like. I think this word will make it into the family lexicon along with inspectify (to examine something extra-closely) and, my favorite, supertomorrow (the day after tomorrow. I use this one all the time). Leo hopes it will take off like the word frindle did in Andrew Clements's middle-grade novel of the same name.

Frindle is my favorite of Clements's many good school stories. We listened to the audiobook edition read by John Fleming (Listening Library, 2004) on a long drive last summer, and Leo bought a paperback copy to read for himself as soon as we got home. Both print and audio editions are highly recommended.

KidsPost (7/22/08) has more audio book recommendations for families. I noticed that The View From Saturday has multiple (probably 4) readers, just in case you don't like one; and the book, by E.L. Konigsburg, won the Newbery in 1997.

Happy listening!