Last weekend (or was it three weeks ago now?!) we took the kids to our local library for a bit of a labyrinth awareness thing. They had gotten book recommendations from local personalities, and then laid out the books on the floor to make a labyrinth, with a card saying who had recommended each one. The outer ring of the labyrinth was all all Carol Shields novels — labyrinths feature in her novel, Larry’s Party. I’ve not read it, nor any of her work… but I probably should. The whole thing is to promote the ground-breaking for a tribute to Carol Shields, the Carol Shields Labyrinth which will is being built in King’s Park, which is the nearest city park of any size to our home, and we’ve spent time walking there as a result. It promises to be a very nice feature in the park, and I’m looking forward to the completion of the project and being able to walk the labyrinth. I’ve got a photo of the labyrinth walk at the local branch of the library, but I’ve not downloaded it from my phone yet… though I notice photos have been posted elsewhere online, and if you look at the photo of Marjorie Anderson sitting in the middle of the labyrinth, you’ll see me in the background, along with my oldest daughter on the left and wife and youngest daughter on the right, partly out of frame. Actually, we’re all partly out of frame, you can only see our feet ;^) Had you going, didn’t I? Secret identity: still intact. Actually, it was last weekend I tood the kids to the Millennium Library (main branch) to the book launch for a young readers’ book, Racing for Diamonds. The author was there, signed a copy for us; they served bannock afterwards, along with cupcakes and juice. My oldest (almost 9 now) read it right away, and my youngest (5½) is partway through it. We’re amazed how well she’s reading… chapter-books like “Junie B. Jones” and she’s still in Kindergarten. The older one can easily do 2 hours reading each evening… she and one of her classmates are voracious readers — my wife suggested the two of them should challenge the rest of her entire class to a reading contest, but I think they’re a bit too nervous to take that on. I think they could do it.