All in a day of homeschooling

It's amazing exactly what trivia get looked into around here.

This story came about because Emma loves the Barbie Princess movies and Logan is a harried older brother who can sometimes stand no more. She owns several and has borrowed the ones she doesn't have. This morning, Logan began listing all the aspects of Barbie movies he absolutely hates, including too many high pitched songs that stick in your head, Barbie's too-good-to-be-true character and predictable plot lines. (For all lovers of Barbie movies, this is only the opinion of Logan and not necessarily that of the blog writer.)

Then he came up with an interesting statement. He said, "The villains have always got moles on their faces, and in my opinion, that's horrible for all the good people with moles who might be watching." Emma couldn't let this statement go unchallenged, so for the next little while, they were digging up all the Barbie movies and freeze-framing close-ups of the villains just to check.

For some time it looked as if Logan's theory would turn out to be true. Lady Rowena, Queen Ariana and King Rothbart each had a mole on their face. Logan and Emma were arguing about whether Gothel, from Rapunzel, had one or not. And then she got the better of him. Preminger, the bad guy from "The Princess and the Pauper," has a smooth complexion. So Emma was pleased.

"He's still pretty ugly though," Logan said.

That started a discussion of whether fairy-tale cartoon villains really need to be ugly. We could only think of one handsome bad guy, and that was Gaston, from Disney's "Beauty & the Beast." We decided that of course he probably did need to be good-looking as well as black hearted, to be a perfect contrast to the beast in every imaginable way. (Of course there is also Snow White's wicked stepmother, who was meant to be 2nd fairest in the land, but the kids don't think she was very attractive anyway.)

Not that long ago, I took Emma to the movies to watch "Enchanted" and have to recommend it as the perfect movie for parents (and even brothers) of little girls who love cartoon princess movies. Although the boys didn't come, I think they'd like the farcical take-offs, so we'll be hiring it when it's available from the video shop. I can't help smiling at times when we go to visit my sister, who only has boys. You can tell a boy, like Logan, who has a sister, because he knows all the names and plots of fairy-tales, even though he says he'd far, far rather not.