One of my favorite children’s book authors, from back when I owned a child of my own, is Lane Smith. He has a new one out in August, a bit of metafiction for young people called It’s a Book, in which a monkey is grilled by a jackass on his reading matter: “What do you have there?” “Can you scroll down?” “Can you blog with it?” “Well, can it tweet?” to which the monkey answers, patiently, over and over, “It’s a book.” Until the end, where he amends, “It’s a book, Jackass.”

Now, nobody is holding a gun to my head here, but given the choice between It’s a Book and the other recent literary conversation between monkey and jackass? I’ll take Smith’s, thanks. (Although I have to admit a soft spot for this one, having experienced both.)