Last October I spoke on a panel with four other authors, including fellow Pirate Tree-huggers J.L. Powers and Nancy Bo Flood, on the topic of children’s literature and war. My part on children as combatants included G. Neri and Randy DuBurke’s graphic novel Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty about an 11-year-old Chicago…
One of the great pleasures of being a book review blogger is getting to know other bloggers, hearing what they’re reading, and sharing notes. I met Maggie Desmond-O’Brien two years ago when she reviewed Gringolandia, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. Last year when I was putting together a panel for the ALAN workshop…
Nearly a year ago, the people of Egypt toppled the long-standing dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and last week conducted their first democratic elections in many years. The revolution—the largest and most successful of the Arab Spring—began with a sit-in at Tahrir Square in Cairo and spread throughout the country, as Egyptians of all backgrounds took…
After years of struggle and frustration—including a close call in 2009—same sex couples gained the right to marry in New York State this past summer. The victory followed countless demonstrations, endless negotiating, the declared support of newly elected Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the powerful and courageous declaration of four Republican State Senators that they’d had…
At the regional IBBY conference in Fresno last month, three of us from The Pirate Tree spoke on a panel about war and children’s literature. The books we discussed were for the most part realistic depictions of war past and present. Some authors, however, have chosen to weave elements of fantasy into their stories of…
This weekend I have been in Chicago for the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) conference, followed by the ALAN workshop. (Many have wondered about this: ALAN stands for Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE.) As part of the ALAN workshop I organized a breakout session featuring two prominent teenage bloggers who review…
Six weeks ago, I took my first trip to the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park. Since then, the numbers have grown in New York City, and the Occupy movement has spread to hundreds of other cities in the United States and around the world. Demonstrators have faced violence and arrest in numbers not…
We think of war as happening to children in other places. In doing so, we fail to think about young people in the United States whose everyday lives mirror the lives of young people in the world’s combat zones. For children who experience severe bullying because of their alleged sexual orientation, appearance, cognitive and behavioral…
On Saturday I journeyed to Zuccotti Plaza in New York City, site of the two-week-old Occupy Wall Street action. Occupy Wall Street began with a sit-in by a small group of college students—some still in their teens, others just beyond them. They have seen their prospects diminish while the wealthiest one percent prospers in the…
My review of Abe in Arms two weeks ago focused on the continuing struggles of a former child soldier in Liberia to overcome the trauma of a violent childhood. As Abraham Odo (his name before being adopted by the Elders family), Pegi Deitz Shea’s protagonist joined a rebel group at the age of 12 in…
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