We were at a birthday party last week (the one where the grandfather told me I’m old) and the birthday boy said he had gotten a Leapster. Now, I just figured out what the Leap Frog company is like a month ago when I read about it in Buy Buy Baby (or, when I read about it in the first 50 pages of Buy Buy Baby, before I had to return it to the library and start my grad school class). So I was fairly flabbergasted when one of the parents at the party chimed in with, “Leapster! The greatest invention on earth! Educate, educate, educate!” According to Buy Buy Baby (or, again, the very beginning part of the book), this is exactly what Leap Frog has conducted one million focus groups to get people to think. I also recently saw a TV ad for a Leapster that said something about having new educational games like WALL-E and Disney Princesses. Maybe I’m crazy, but those sound less like educational games and more like marketing. I don’t really get what kind of valuable education you’re going to get from something called “Disney Princesses” that’s run on some tiny thing that you stare at rather than looking at trees and running through the grass. My poor kids, all they have for educational fun are things like BOOKS and BLOCKS. They are clearly going to grow up to be giant dummies, with no knowledge of Leapster and its ability to…to…well, ok, I don’t actually have any idea what it does, except for the fact that it looks like a Game Boy and includes Disney and Pixar product tie-ins. Children of America! Put the Leapster down, and go roll down a hill!