This week! Books! The resurgence of book bans remains distressingly rampant as parents try to control not just what their own kids read, but other kids as well. As Jamelle Bouie notes, what some are calling “parents rights” is really “when some parents have the right to dominate all the others.” Alyssa Rosenberg has some […]
Roald Dahl
The Dahl controversy is capitalism not wokeism (This week in books)
This week! Books! Lots of links saved up since the last edition of This Week in Books, so let’s get to it. A controversy erupted over the last few weeks involving Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company creating new editions of Dahl’s children’s novels with updates to some of Dahl’s language with an aim […]
How to create a great villain
Bill Sikes. Lady MacBeth. Captain Ahab. Voldemort. The Wormwoods. Sauron. Iago. The best villains in literature send a shiver down our spine and make our blood pressure rise. Why do some villains have such a hold on us while others feel like weak sauce? Here are some tips on how to craft a memorable villain. […]
Who are the most memorable parents in books?
The Wormwoods in Matilda. The Weasleys in Harry Potter. Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. There are some seriously memorable parents in literature. Which ones are your favorites? Art: The Artist and His Family by James Peale
Orwell’s “1984” turns seventy (This week in books)
This week! Books! George Orwell’s 1984 turned seventy years old this past week, and, well, everyone’s kinda wishing it weren’t quite so prescient. Two insightful reflections on Orwell’s classic dystopian masterpiece caught my eye this week: Louis Menand in The New Yorker and George Packer in The Atlantic. For me, no one can dispute Orwell’s […]
In Defense of Dead and Absent Parents in Children’s Literature
There has been some discussion in the book world lately about the prevalence of absent and/or dead parents in children’s literature. In an interesting article in Publishers Weekly called “The Ol’ Dead Dad Syndrome,” editor and author Leila Sales argues that dead parents in children’s literature are not only troublingly common, they can sometimes be […]
