This month I watched (and wrote about) My Neighbor Totoro and Whale Rider, two movies worth watching with the kids. Here’s an excerpt:

When my book deadline led to my inevitable crash, Tony took the boys out to the zoo and I hunkered down on the couch with Eli’s blanket, a cup of tea, and the remote control to see what Tivo had been watching for me. I went for comfort, first, with My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988), a film I’ve seen before, and then followed it up with one I’d missed when it first came out, Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002), creating an inadvertent and completely coincidental absent-mother double feature.

You can read the rest over at Literary Mama.