It won't be, of course. But compared with other queries, answering that one is a snap: "It's a person. It's actually a grown-up man, even though it might look like a woman or something else."

But after that?

Thanks to media saturation and Web sites offering lurid details, your kids will inevitably hear about the trial, and may ask a number of questions. Good answers will be those that don't overwhelm them, or you.

Above all, remind kids not to judge.

Here are some likely questions and possible answers offered by legal and sexual-abuse experts.

For kids in grades K-4

Q. Who is that?

A. Michael Jackson. He's been a famous singer since he was little. He's a grown-up now.

Q. What did he do?

A. A boy says Michael touched the boy's body where he's not supposed to, and it made him uncomfortable and unhappy.

Q. How?

A. No one knows for sure. So they're going to a court where they'll figure it out.

Q. Does it hurt?

A. I don't know, but whether it did or not, when an adult touches a child in a private place and makes them uncomfortable or unhappy, the child should tell someone.

Q. Why is it bad?

A. Because you have private parts and adults are not supposed to do anything to hurt them, or to hurt a kid. The law protects children from people who do that.

Q. What'll happen to him?

A. Some people and a judge will listen to Michael and to the boy, and decide what happened and whether Michael should be punished.

Q. Does he get a time-out?

A. If the judge and the people decide that Michael did something wrong, he gets a grown-up time-out. He gets taken somewhere and put in a jail.

For older children

Children in grades 5 through middle school know that sexual touching of children is illegal; more detail and discussion may be needed.

Q. Who's that?

A. Michael Jackson. He's a singer since he was a kid, and now he's in his 40s and very rich and famous.

Q. What did he do?

A. He's been arrested and accused of sexually touching a little boy, and he's going to court for a jury to decide whether he did.

Q. What'd he do exactly?

A. Supposedly he touched a child sexually, on his private parts. Supposedly at his house, he did things to get this boy to stay with him. He may have given the boy toys in order to touch this child or to have the child touch him.

Q. I heard he gave the boy alcohol — and what's porn?

A. Porn is a word some people use to describe pictures of naked people, or people having sex. I heard about the alcohol, too. But right now no one agrees on exactly what happened.

Q. What's going to happen to him?

A. He's going to have a trial in court, with a judge and a jury deciding whether or not he did this.

Q. What'll happen to the kid?

A. He might have to come to court to describe what happened. But he will be protected so no one will bother him again, if this did happen.