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This section is devoted to those of us who do not have a ready-made set of various aged young people at our immediate disposal who could help us understand what is of interest to children these days. In order to help us escape from the bottomless depths of our grownup ignorance, this page will provide insights from prominent small people into whatever happens to currently pique the interest of the younger set. Armed with the information contained herein, grownup pediatric anesthesiologists will be able to converse knowledgeably with their patients about things important to the children or at least be able to fake it until the induction is over. Things will be kept simple since the target audience is grownups. As editor, since I am also one of those aforementioned poorly informed grownups, I will exercise little control over content, but may from time to time help with grammar or comment on a particular topic. I welcome suggestions for topics to be reviewed in future issues and will endeavor to find authors of the appropriate ages for those topics. The ages represented here will be from 2-12. I am afraid that what passes for teen-age culture is simply too foreign and painful a subject to include.

Thomas J. Mancuso, MD

Pokemon
Philip McCallion, age 5

The word Pokemon means pocket monster in Japanese. Pokemon are literally little monsters, characters who engage in various forms of combat. There are over 150 monsters, many of whom "evolve" from one form into another. For example Charmander evolves into Charmelion who then evolves into Charzard. Each monster has sources of power, favorite environments in which they thrive and gain power and specific enemies. There are toys, trading cards (English and the more valuable Japanese versions), a TV show, the Movie(s) and other paraphernalia. Pikachu, the most famous of the Pokemon, is the "adorable" yellow pokemon after whom the first movie was titled. Blastois and Venouauris are other favorites.

Pokemon 2000, the newest movie, has just been released.

Blues Clues
Laura McCallion, age 5

Blues Clues is a TV show with accompanying toys and other paraphernalia. Blue is a cartoon dog. The show is hosted by a human, Steve, who moves about in the cartoon world. Steve clumsily and ineffectually looks for clues left by Blue. Clues are identified by having Blue's paw print on them. The clues relate to an activity of interest to the children watching. For example, if Steve is planning to read a story, the clues are about the story. If the story is "The Three Little Pigs", the clues will be bricks, twigs and a wolf. Steve will be completely baffled by the clues but will get help from children and eventually figure things out.

Other regulars on the show are Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper and the talking mailbox. Magenta, another cartoon dog who is a friend of Blue, also appears regularly.

Rugrats

This began as a cartoon TV show. The characters are: the babies Tommy, Chuckie and the twins Phil and Lil. Angelica is an older character, 4 or 5 years old who is quite a troublemaker, often tricking the babies and causing other sorts of mischief. Surprisingly, there are also grownups in the show. Tommy's parents are Stu and DeDe Pickles. Chuckie's father is named Charles. Chuckie does not have a mother. The upcoming rugrats movie (the second), set in Paris, involves the search for Chuckie's mom.

Harry Potter
Paul McCallion, age 7

If you haven't heard of Harry Potter you might be interested to know that, among other things, the new millennium has begun, Michael Jordan retired from basketball and Microsoft Corporation may be split up.

Harry is a wizard whose parents were mysteriously killed by a villain (Lord Voledmort). He is stuck living with his non-wizard, rather uncaring and mean spirited aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, and their awful child named Dudley. The aunt and uncle know of Harry's powers and very much resent them and do their best to ignore and undermine him. Nevertheless, Harry eventually does go to the wizard school, Hogwarts, to learn the craft of wizardry and he has many adventures there.

Some of the characters Harry meets at Hogwarts are fellow students Hermonie, a nice, but bossy know-it-all, Ron Weasley and his five brothers who also attend Hogwarts. Another student, with whom Harry has trouble, is named Draco Malfoy. The headmaster, Professor Albus Dumbledoor is fond of Harry.

Harry is a natural at quiditch, the primary wizard sport, a game played in the air on broomsticks with four balls which are given various names. The goal is to get the ball called the golden snitch. The house which has turned out the most dark wizards, Slytherin, has won the quiditch cup for several years. Harry leads his house,Gryffindor, to victory in the quiditch tournament in the third book.

Another important term in Harry Potter series is the word muggle, which is how wizard types refer to those of us in the non-wizard world. Harry's aunt and uncle are muggles. In addition to possessing no magical powers, we muggles may not see all that wizards see. For example, terminal # 9 and one half at Kings Cross Station, the location in London from which the train leaves for Hogwarts, is visible only to wizards not muggles.

Phillip, Laura and Paul McCallion, the authors, acknowledge the help and support of the grown-up's they keep, Drs. Cheryl and Jack McCallion.