Speaking of Allowances . . .

When I made a pitch just below for small, cheap books for small hands and minds, I had no idea that toddlers already had their allowances otherwise committed:

"Kids get older younger now,'" said Bob Chapek, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. "When I started in this business 12 years ago, kids entered into the Disney Classic range at 6. Now, at 2 to 3 years old, kids are buying the Cinderella classic DVD."

The NY Times today gives us the not exactly startling news that little girls want to pretend to be princesses. The reporter, Jodi Kantor, bemoans the fact that girls prefer Cinderella in her post-transformation mode as belle of the ball rather than as the "cruelly oppressed wretch" she is at the start of the story. But come on: wouldn't you? And more to the point: didn't Cinderella?