Collections of a 9 year old

When I was nine, in 1974, I had a very serious, passionate collection . It was a collection of 'Wacky Packs' . These most awesome trading cards, the size of baseball cards, were made by Topps. And I had loads and loads of them. I had a shrine of them....sit and stare at all of them, trade them with my friends in the school yard, sort them by fave to least fave. Hours and hours of card fun.

And now fast forward to 2008, our Global small world with access to everything and I discover that my 9 year old has a similar passion, obsession with a collection.



Her collection comes straight from Japan. She's amassed a wondrous, charming collection of the smallest most detailed Japanese pencil erasers. These little things are amazing...and worth their size in gold for the 4th grade girls at Pierce School, Brookline. Most of them are tiny, lilliputian sized recreations of food...Asian, American, what-have-you. And mostly seemed to be geared to the girl collector. Here are a couple of my personal faves, would I collect these babies:

This is no bigger than an inch, and it's described as a plate of 'red curry'. And here's the thing, if you don't like rice, you can remove it from the tiny plate.
If you prefer not to have curry, just take it off.

Who doesn't love green and orange ice cream....or maybe it's sherbet.
Maybe it's a scoop of lime and orange sherbet.

A plate of spaghetti, green beans and carrots? No bigger than my thumb?
It's all so scrunch-up-your-shoulders-and-make-yourself-so-small.

Fire extinguisher? With removable hose, should your plate of rice and curry catch fire.

Shumai. Pink, round shumai. With a lovely green garnish.

Salmon roe sushi.

The one thing I don't get is that these are billed as erasers. Pencil erasers. But I don't think any one of those 4th graders would actually use one because then what used to be a pristine plate of nigiri sushi might then become a gray, dirty plate of shredded wobs.