Confronting Stereotypes of Teens with Schizophrenia: A Review of Freaks Like...
Earlier this month, I was asked by the Children’s Book Council to contribute a post to the CBC Diversity 101 blog, which helps editors, librarians, teachers, reviewers, and authors identify basic...
View ArticleWriting about children and war: Guest post by J.L. Powers
Something we often forget when we talk about war is how it affects not just the current reality but reality from then on. Wherever it goes, and whatever it touches, it permanently poisons. Since...
View Article“We’re like Firemen”, a guest post by Paul Rehm
We’re Like Firemen. 31 of us, representing national and international NGOs, gathered in the Hebron RC conference room earlier this month [April 2013]. The increasing number of children being seized...
View ArticlePressure cooker bombs & Cluster bombs
It’s been a month since the two pressure cooker bombs killed 3 people and injured more than 260 others. The nature of the bombs caused many maiming injuries that involved the loss of one or more...
View ArticleHow can we end the civil war in Syria?
Since the first peaceful uprising in Syria on March 15, 2011 as part of the Arab Spring and against the dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, dissent was met with brutal violence. As this...
View ArticleAward-Winning Multicultural and Environmental Books–and a Milestone
This year marks a big milestone for the non-profit multicultural children’s magazine Skipping Stones. Founded in 1988 by educator Arun Toke, Skipping Stones is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The...
View ArticleWalking and Chewing Gum [updated and expanded version]
Some weeks back I saw a news article that stated states with the stricter gun safety laws have the lowest rates of death by fire arm…whether suicide, homicide or accidental. It also stated that the...
View ArticleStories of Families in War
Last week I presented the Skipping Stones Honor Awards list for outstanding multicultural, international, and environmental books for children and teens. One of the books on that list, the essay...
View ArticleSpending Our Money for Good: The Vine Basket and Fair Trade
Writers who take on political stories—stories that focus on conflicts within and between communities—face daunting challenges. How does a writer keep the focus on the story rather than the political...
View ArticleWhy Do You Write? Urban Teens Speak Out
Last month, I spent a fun and inspiring afternoon at Arts & Media Prep High School in Brooklyn, New York, where author Fatima Shaik and I spoke to a group of 13 students, mostly ninth graders. The...
View ArticleNo Military Attack on Syria!
I last wrote about the civil war in Syria in May, when that war, which started as a non-violent uprising in March of 2011 had become a bloody conflict with more than 90,000 deaths. A month and a half...
View ArticleThe Micro and the Macro
As the light….in many shades and some more illuminating than others…shines on the horrors of war, we have a myriad other challenges as a society and as individuals. What if you are in a same sex...
View ArticleThe Brooklyn Blossoms Book Club: Mothers and Daughters Read Together
I spent much of the University at Albany’s vacation week in New York City, where on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend I took the subway to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn for the first...
View ArticleA Cascade of Colors
Like looking at a cascade of colors, anyone alert and aware today sees and hears about multiple challenges to our society. Individually we care about some more than others. You see in the picture...
View ArticleDepression, economic and personal: A review of every day after
The long recession and weak recovery have kindled interest in the Great Depression and the ways that families responded to sudden economic deprivation nearly a century ago. Laura Golden’s new novel...
View ArticleThe Legacy of War: A Review of Brotherhood
When political leaders declare war, among the things they rarely think about is the aftermath. War may appear to resolve conflicts between peoples and nations because there are winners and losers, and...
View ArticleBridging North and South, Then and Now: An Interview with A. B. Westrick
I first met A. B. Westrick (aka Anne) in a writing workshop at Vermont College of Fine Arts in summer 2010, where I read and critiqued one of the beginning chapters of Brotherhood. Right away, I knew I...
View ArticleThe myth of precision and the right to home. Weaponized drones and why they...
Before we begin to talk about the history and results of US drone attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan it’s important to visualize just where Pakistan is located and where the...
View Article“Make a Wish.” Turn it around! From competition to cooperation, from...
Hello all. This article highlights three situations that grabbed my awareness during the past 17 days or so. One is very small in the scheme of things. The next involves thousands of people and the...
View ArticleGobble Tov, Thanksgivukkah Don’t Let the Light Go Out! Gratitude for the...
By now almost everyone who has access to the media knows that Thanksgiving will converge with the first day, second night, of Hanukkah. This is a very early celebration of the Jewish holiday that...
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