twentieth century dinosaurs

I love Scholastic books. I was a teacher and I bought and redeemed points for lots and lots of books which now line the shelves upstairs in my house. That said, I'm disappointed in how much tv character merchandise they sell. I wish the school could limit how much they offer. They don't know what books will be available until they unpack the boxes. Scholastic has its heart in the right place. The policy is that if a child comes to buy a book and doesn't have enough money, the salespeople (such as me, today) are to discretely sell the book to the child and ask them to bring the rest of the money another day. There is to be no follow up. Scholastic would rather "put the book in the child's hands than lose a sale and disappoint a child".

Pook and Bug both have book fairs at school right now. They've been poring over the newsprint brochure. They know to look at real stories and not character books and items, which I won't pay to own. I said I would buy them each a book and I'm encouraging Pook to spend his own money to get one for his brother for Christmas. Three of the seven on his wish list were books he thought Bug would want.

The kids see something Pokemon and are discussing it. I looked over and checked it out.
Pook: "I guess you didn't have Pokemon when you were a kid."
I defend myself, "No, but there were lots of other characters."
Pook takes the slam dunk: "Well, I wasn't alive in the Twentieth Century, so I wouldn't know."