It’s August 2005 in Hartless, a small, dusty town in the Texas Panhandle. Kindergarten teacher Helen McCabe, in her mid-50s, has just finished the first week of school, hoping that her class will help her find her mooring again. Her husband, Hal, recently died in a car crash; he drove into an intersection, just as […]
“Mags MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. / And on that farm she had a…WHOLE LOTTA WORK TO DO!” With Old MacDonald taking a much-needed vacation, Mags decides to bring the farm into the 21st century. She begins ordering contraptions: a turbo jetpack with hose attachment to help water the crops (“with a SPRINKLE-SPRINKLE here, / […]
In the context of Black cultural life, writes English professor Freeburg, “soul is the one-word answer to this question: How did enslaved Africans turn America’s infamous failure into the greatest moral occasion of modern Western life?” Soul involves the formation of community, self-care, and self-help; delivering aid to others; and finding meaning in life—all enabling […]
Drawing from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sufism, each of the 66 chapters includes a dharma (teaching) and sadhana (practice) to help people shift from suffering to peace. The aim is to move from an agitated “monkey mind” and to instead “perceive what is truly happening in the freshness, juiciness, and awe of the present moment.” The […]
Scott and her family lived in various places in Canada and England. She and her younger sister spent much of their time with nannies and babysitters, since their parents were often traveling. As a girl, the author was known in her household for her “hysterical meltdowns,” generally stemming from an intense fear of being alone. […]
Clad in a street-cool outfit (blue sweatpants, black T-shirt beneath a sleeveless undershirt, and a plaid shirt knotted at the waist), a golden retriever–ish pooch struts confidently center stage, demonstrating a series of dance moves. A white dog with floppy ears and tan spots, wearing leggings and shorts, waits in the wings gazing admiringly. Perfectly […]
The self-declared “worst” kid in his gifted circle of friends—the one with seemingly no talent for anything except getting into trouble—has spent his final year at Jerome Marco K-8 collecting disaster stories with his Team Bomb Shelter crew: martial arts cousin Adam, science whiz Rover, statistics prodigy Sean, wheelchair-using brainy beauty Helen, bighearted athlete Charlie, […]
“This was the first photograph I ever saw of Susie. It hung in the bedroom of her little flat in Maida Vale in London, and I fell in love with it. Of course, I also fell in love with Susie herself, and thirty years later we are still as devoted to each other as two […]
When Anna Kamoria was attending her North Carolina high school, she also trained in sword fighting and martial arts with her mother Adelyna’s “handsome, stoic” friend Derrick, and she felt different from her classmates “in a way that made it hard to relate to others.” One night, her mother was murdered by unknown assailants and […]
Julie wakes one morning to the “BANG / CRASH / BOOOOM” of the Chinese opera “thundering from the TV” while Poh Poh practices her sword dancing. Julie has so many questions. Over egg tarts in Chinatown, Poh Poh spins stories of growing up in China, where Cantonese opera performers frequented her father’s tea house. When […]