Over on Public Books today, my essay “Trump is a liar. Tell children the truth” recommends some good books for educating young people about “President” Trump, and brings in a few examples of the type of books that ought to be avoided – indeed, that a conscientious publisher would have never published in the first place. (Also:
Last year, there was Donald and the Golden Crayon, a satirical look at Mad King Donald, inspired by Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955). For more on that, see my interview with the book’s author and publisher from October 2018. This year, it’s Donald and the Black Sharpie, in which at least four five six people have invoked Johnson’s hero to
If you have yet to read Ross Gay‘s The Book of Delights (2019), here is an invitation to pick it up. A collection of 102 brief essays he wrote over the course of a year, the book is about the possibility – the necessity – of attentiveness to joy in the world. We live in dark times, and the
Separating children from their parents is a violation of basic human rights and does not deter asylum-seekers. Hostile to facts and compassionate only towards himself, Mr. Trump has pursued this policy with reckless indifference to its consequences. As of the end of last month (over four months after the court-imposed deadline to reunite these families),
Today (20 Oct. 2018) would be Crockett Johnson’s 112th birthday. In commemoration of that event, I have two – yes, two – posts for you! The first is an interview with the author and the publisher of the new satirical book Donald and the Golden Crayon. Enjoy! “In the middle of the night, Donald woke
I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few months. Over the past year or so, I’ve been gradually drifting away from Facebook. Lately, the drift has become a decisive move. Last month, I downloaded my Facebook data – in order to better see precisely what Facebook was collecting. Then, I removed Facebook from
On the one-year anniversary of Russia’s successful hacking of American democracy (congrats, Vlad!), a bit of encouragement for those who oppose the Trump regime’s assaults on healthcare, the environment, women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, the very idea of rights, basic human decency, and truth itself. I’ve divided this into three sections: (1) a resistance
Over at The Chronicle of Higher Education today, I have a piece on “Resolutions for a New Academic Year: A survival guide for higher education in perilous times.” Here’s one of those resolutions: Teach students to use language well. We can help them to be wary of lazy euphemism — not just because it is bad
In its new issue, The Horn Book joins the resistance. If the previous statement is a slight overstatement (and it is, because the magazine’s values have opposed those of Trumpism since before it acquired that name), it is only a slight overstatement. The May-June 2017 issue includes at least four pieces critical of the current
Over on Public Books today, I have a new, short piece on Francesca Sanna’s The Journey, a.k.a. one of the best picture books published last year. If you have yet to read it, check out “Refugee Stories for Young Readers” (my essay), which includes some images from the book. In the piece, I observe that As Francesca Sanna’s
