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…
Empathy, Art, and Telling Important Stories: Q&A with Jason Reynolds
Long Way Down—Jason Reynolds’s bestselling novel in verse—makes its way to the Kennedy Center. Reynolds, a member of Planet Word’s Advisory Board, talked to us about empathy, the theatrical adaptation…
Pronunciation, Prestige, and Punchlines: Q&A with David Crystal
Pronunciation can be a minefield of silent letters and tricky vowels — and a signal of social hierarchy. But accents and pronunciation also provide endless fodder for jokes. Linguist and…