Parenthetical

Thanks to our ever-beloved local independent bookstore Wellesley Books, we hosted Laini Taylor last week on her book tour. (Laini, you will remember, is the author of Daughter of Smoke and Bone, about which I kvelled with an uncharacteristic lack of criticism in June.) She signed books (and, patiently, bookmarks), chatted to a group of [...]

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1. No Brownies at Bake Sales, but Doritos May Be O.K. raised my blood pressure way more than a whole plate of brownies (mmm… brownies): Nine months after effectively banning most fund-raising food sales in city schools, a city panel will vote Wednesday on an amended regulation that will allow student groups to sell items [...]

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Here’s a chance for you, my friends and readers, to tell my kids what to read: what book do you remember most fondly from your 6th-8th grade years? Get your suggestion to me by Thursday night and I’ll probably put it on my school’s middle school summer reading list! (I still want to hear your [...]

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We were delighted to host the charming Shannon Hale a couple of weeks ago! She signed great heaping piles of books while chatting with our kids, gave a fabulous presentation to a room full of rapt middle schoolers, and even handled their slight rowdiness (born only of enthusiasm, I assure you) like a teaching pro. [...]

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What I didn’t want to announce when I read the first Bartimaeus (because it was still in the works) was that I read it in preparation for a school visit from its author! He was here yesterday, signing loads of books and talking to my middle schoolers about the writing process. He read to us [...]

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Via my dear friend Eric at The Oyster’s Garter: Who would win in a fight, Capt. Picard or Darth Vader? I showed my 8th graders the tree octopus page today, by way of teaching website evaluation in a way that didn’t make them start snoring and drooling on their computers. “Why would anyone make a [...]

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Conversation between two of my 7th graders today: S: I just finished a great book! The Incredible Adventure of…something or other. (I didn’t quite catch the name.) A: Is it about mice? S: No, it’s about a rabbit. Why’d you say that? A: Because those adventure books always have rodents. The kid’s not wrong! (Image [...]

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It’s September 11. I saw a headline on the front page of a newspaper this morning remarking on “Six Years Later.” And I realized: that means my 7th graders were 6 years old. Their awareness of the world around them has existed only in a post-9/11 world. They will remember 9/11 the way I remember [...]

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It only takes $5.60 and one week to get an envelope full of letters from students in a Boston suburb to students in a rural Ghanaian village. The global infrastructure is an incredible thing.

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Quick Ghana update: Except for the last rabies shot, I am done with my vaccinations. I am impervious to disease! (How I wish that were actually true…) Yellow fever, rabies, MMR (measles mumps rubella), hepatitis A/B, polio, TDAP (typhoid diptheria pertussis), meningitis. I start my malaria pills in a couple of weeks – keep an [...]

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