For millennia the written word has held special significance among those whose faith is centered on scripture. Some ancient Jewish and Islamic traditions imposed safeguards to prevent the desecration of […]
Exploring The Silk Road, With Kids
As a dabbler in literary translation, I was delighted by the recent discovery that September is World Kid Lit month. The designation provides—so I gather—librarians and other book enthusiasts with […]
Explorers, Observers, and Artists
Summer days can provide families with welcome relief from school routines and responsibilities. They can also stretch out like the trackless sea before the weary and overstimulated parent. Nature observation provides an economical, accessiblechange of pace. Highly flexible, it can expand to fill an empty afternoon or contract to […]
Parenting Pigeons
Pincushion, porcupine, paleolithic—a procession of alliteratives suggested themselves to my writer’s brain as I goggled at the two-week-old squabs. My first four starter pigeons had arrived by airmail nearly three […]
D, by Michel Faber
The hidden-picture nature of this engaging middle-grade novel accounts for some portion of its appeal: Can you spot the echoes of Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Lewis Carroll, and […]