Posted on March 16, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Cinema Blend has a terrific new series called Parental Guidance, the saga of a devoted dad and his 15 year old daughter who’ve agreed to watch some of the dad’s favorite movies together. So far, they’ve watched “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Ghostbusters.” His description of their reactions to the films is marvelous, and I can’t think of a better way to bond. I look forward to whatever they decide to watch next.
Posted on December 18, 2013 at 3:51 pm
I love Amy Dickinson’s idea of “A Book on Every Bed,” a wonderful way to start Christmas (or any other special occasion).
Here’s how it works: You take a book (it can be new or a favorite from your own childhood).
You wrap it. On Christmas Eve (or whatever holiday you celebrate), you leave the book in a place where Santa is likely to find it. When I communicated with David McCullough about borrowing his idea, he was very clear: Santa handles the delivery and places the book on a child’s bed.
In the morning, the children in your household will awaken to a gift that will far outlast any toy: a guided path into the world of stories.
I know this for sure: No matter who you are or what you do, reading will unlock untold opportunities, mysteries and passions.
When you have a book and the ability to tell, read and share stories, you gain access to the universe of others’ imaginations. And avid readers know that if you have a book, you are never alone.
Please start this tradition with your family. It will give your children the enduring pleasure of the magic of books.
Posted on October 22, 2013 at 3:59 pm
In 2002 I wrote an article about the messages in magazines for teenage girls. I said that they struck “an uneasy balance between being empowering and being trashy. This is the result of another uneasy balance between their two constituencies, readers and advertisers. Girls want to attract boys. Advertisers want to avoid controversy.”
Since that time, the internet has, for worse but mostly for better, opened up a new range of possibilities for teenagers to express themselves and explore different ideas about growing up. One of the best is Rookie, from Tavi Gevinson, an astonishingly accomplished teenaged writer/editor (with an assured movie debut in “Enough Said”). With monthly themes and topic categories that include music, fiction, tech, books and comics, style, eye candy, sex and love, “you said it,” “you asked it,” “live through this,” and “anything else” and a warm welcome for writing by its readers, it is both smart and wise, with interviews that meet or exceed the quality of any you will find in “Vanity Fair” or “Rolling Stone.” A second volume of the collected works, Rookie Yearbook Two
Posted on October 12, 2013 at 3:59 pm
New York Magazine has a great selection of articles about one of the fastest-growing and most popular categories in publishing, the increasingly inaccurately-named Young Adult genre. Jen Doll writes about loving YA novels in her thirties, quoting my friend Sandie Angulo Chen.
Why do I, and other adults, read books for teens? In late August, YA author Malinda Lo asked adults to offer up their thoughts on the subject via Twitter, along with the hashtag #whyadultsreadYA. “I enjoy the immediacy of the stories and the sense of being at the beginning of the path of who you’ll become,” tweeted @sesinkhorn. “I love the intensity of 1st time experiences, experimentation, & growth that we’re told to stop doing as adults,” added @sarahockler. When I asked Sandie Angulo Chen, co-founder of the blog Teen Lit Rocks, for her theory, she said, “I think it’s about having that desire to connect with the you that’s still young, having that appreciation for that time in your life and wanting to reconnect with it.” And I have to agree; there’s an undeniable nostalgic lure. Reading YA, unlike consuming other forms of entertainment that are rooted in the past—movies that are remakes or origin stories of long-established comic-book heroes, for example—reminds me of the person I used to be rather than the things I used to be into.
There’s a kind of forward momentum, too, enabled by reading about characters for whom lives are still blank slates ready to be filled, compared to our own. We can measure ourselves against their choices and see how we succeeded; we can feel wiser than they are, knowing that what we did then turned out okay; we can also see for ourselves where there might still be room to improve. As dire as the situations may be—the worlds of these characters contain creatures bent on destroying them, untrustworthy adults, grave injustices, unrequited or deeply problematic love, abuse, bullying, suicide, murder, paralyzing self-doubt—there is the sense that things have the potential to get better.
It should be noted that I read plenty of things written by and meant for adults. I can stand tall as I show them off on the subway. But adult as they are, they don’t always captivate me the way YA does. Those are the books I read in a one-night rush, staying up until three in the morning to find out what happened, and when I do, sighing in pleasure because the heroine really does get the guy, the world has been saved, the parents finally understand, or there is at least the promise of things working out in the end. Adult books may be great literature, but they don’t make me feel the same way.
Emma Whitford writes about the growing influence of YA. Novels like The Hunger Games
If you’re a YA fan, take a look at this great new fabric from Spoonflower, the pattern a collection of retro library check-out cards for classic YA books.
Posted on July 7, 2013 at 8:00 am
I love Amy Poehler‘s series of advice videos for girls — good advice for everyone. I love this one about the importance of quiet.
And this one about the importance of being nice.
