We Need Diverse Books

When I was in graduate school, working on a degree in teaching, I was especially keen to learn how to teach reading so that all students would end up loving…

Prison Reading

So the latest financial outlaw and crypto-currency-exchange fraudster, Sam Bankman-Fried, was quoted in an interview prior to his downfall and arrest as proclaiming “I would never read a book.” Who…
Children reading books on the Story Table in Planet Word's magic Library

What Is Reading For?

Recently the New York Times devoted an entire Sunday Opinion section to the question “What Is School For?” What a crazy question, I thought! Being a former teacher, the mother…
Black and white image of George Washington and family

Lessons Passed Down

My favorite gift to newborns is, you guessed it, a book, but one that I especially like to give (along with Pat the Bunny!) is any edition of Mother Goose…

Remote Control

A while ago I was invited to be a judge for the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize. My husband, Tom Friedman of the New York Times, had served a 9-year…