Finding Grit through Lit
Click to view slideshow. Not long ago, I read an article on NPR about how important it is to teach kids to be ‘gritty.’ It discusses the findings of Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the...
View ArticleYA Summer Romance Reading
Click to view slideshow. With this week’s theater release of The Fault in Our Stars, based on the novel by John Green, I’ve been thinking about summer romance and its appeal to both young adults and...
View ArticleOn the Road Again–with Some Good Books
Click to view slideshow. It’s time to hit the road to summer adventure. Whether you are heading off for a few days’ excursion or embarking on a true cross-country quest to find America, you’ll need...
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Giving Thanks to Writers
While this weekend is the official beginning of the season of hysterical consumerism, it is also the dawn of the season of thanks. We’ve just crossed the threshold—Thanksgiving—and will...
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School Libraries: A Place at the Table
The table is twenty-eight feet long, and made of solid oak. Its top is a single slab of wood. As I fill it with hundreds of books that our high school students will browse today, I try to imagine the...
View ArticleSwapping Stories
To paraphrase bestselling author Jane Smiley, you either love the work or the rewards, and life is a lot easier if you love the work. In her either/or construct, I believe Smiley meant ‘money’ when she...
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Everyone has to Grow Up Sometime
With the flap over Harper Lee’s new book still simmering among readers I know, I have to admit that I’m surprised at how virulently both professional reviewers and ordinary lovers of To Kill a...
View ArticleMotherless Child by Glen Hirshberg
Glen Hirshberg is a Shirley Jackson Award winner as well as a three-time International Horror Guild Award winner. Motherless Child makes clear why he has been thus honored. I might have passed up this...
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Neglected California Tale Is a Must-Read
My local library had added an adult reading program to its menu of summer kids’ programs. Always supportive, I had shown up ready to list the many books I was reading. Just before I started to fill in...
View ArticleUnder the Spell of the Inland Author’s Imagination: Nalo Hopkinson Taps the...
I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions; not anymore that is. But in the last five years, as each year ends, I’ve picked out a few things that I’m curious about to see if, throughout the year, I...
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