[Disclaimer: please note that these are "LaRue's Views;" I am, it would not surprise me to learn, speaking for no one else.]

At the end of my last column, I talked about hearing, in London, from our Kurdish taxi driver about Saddam Hussein's devastatingly anti-Kurd regime. Our driver was frankly grateful for the United States' invasion of Iraq. However, he had no intention of returning, other than as a visitor, to his birthplace. He described it as backward and dangerous -- no place to rear your children.

I started keeping my first journal in 5th or 6th grade. My mother got it for me one Christmas.

It had a soft, burgundy-colored leather cover, and paper that was slightly yellow. There was only one page per day. At the top of the page, I was encouraged to record the weather, and my general health. Then I got a blank page.

So I kept a daily log of my life -- and my thoughts about it -- for about two years. I kept one again my senior year of high school, my last couple of years of college, and on and off ever since.

Not long ago, one of our patrons registered a complaint about a children's picture book called "Princess Buttercup."

The book was about a party being planned by a group of fairies -- diminutive beings, all female. Princess Buttercup set out to gather honey for the party, then got distracted, then got lost. Eventually, she flagged down a butterfly, and found her way back.

That's pretty much the whole story: a slice of the whimsical social life of mythical creatures.

by Demetria Heath

[Ms. Heath is a library patron who recently challenged a children's book, "Princess Buttercup."]

I appreciate Douglas County Libraries' Director James LaRue for offering me this forum and I will provide a list of the reference material used in this writing to anyone requesting it. I ask that you read Princess Buttercup before making the request.

A researcher studying race relations in Chicago records the following quote from a five-year old girl. I have removed the name of the ethnic group that she refers to.