Here’s a little excerpt from a very positive review of the book, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” in today’s New York Times: “….In the other stories the danger may be less operatic, but it’s no less alarming: a child molester lures a 7-year-old boy into a portable bathroom at a carnival; a tattooed stranger tries to abduct a teenage girl…” Talk about the perfect Mother’s Day gift! Now, I’ve got nothing against authors choosing whatever subject matter attracts them. But if you ever wonder why we feel so worried all the time about pedophiles and abductions and even — especially! —…
Author: lskenazy
The death of Natasha Richardson is the definition of tragedy — sad, senseless, shocking. It’s just horrible and a lot of us are haunted by it. In fact, as parents, we maybe a little too haunted by it. How so? “It’s a wake-up call,” announced a mom friend of mine on a field trip last Friday. “Wake-up call to what?” I asked. “Parents now know that when their kid gets hit in the head and says they’re all right, they may not be.” “So we should take our kids to the emergency room every time they hit their head and…
My 10-year-old son wanted the chance to walk from our house to soccer practice behind an elementary school about 1/3 mile from our house. He had walked in our neighborhood a number of times with the family and we have driven the route to practice who knows how many times. It was broad daylight – 5:00 pm. I had to be at the field myself 15 minutes after practice started, so I gave him my cell phone and told him I would be there to check that he made it and sent him off. He got 3 blocks and a police car intercepted him.
At last, the video age is upon us. Click on this if you’re wondering if you can let your kids eat raw cookie dough (one of the many parental fears I examine in “Free-Range Kids” — the book): [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8kiMKtixAo]
Well, my fellow Free-Rangers, here goes. Since my book is coming out in just about a month, the publishers have posted my introductory chapter on a web site called Scribd (the YouTube of documents, or so they say). If you want to get an idea of what the book is like, this would certainly do the trick: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13224933/FREE-RANGE-KIDS-Intro-by-Lenore-Skenazy Off goes the book into the big, wide world. It’s sort of like seeing your kid graduate. (Not that I’d know, yet. But I can hope! And while I’m at it, I’m hoping your kids graduate some day, too.) Have a great…
Here’s a campaign it’s easy to get behind, “Tell Scholastic: Put the Book Back in Book Clubs.” It’s sponsored by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood http://www.commercialexploitation.org/, which noticed that a whole lot of the items for sale through those little Scholastic book club flyers were either NOT books, or were books that come with little doodads like jewelry or toys. Let’s call them “Happy Meal” books. Scholastic enjoys a very privileged position in childhood in that it is allowed to advertise in the schools, via those flyers. You don’t see Toys R Us handing out catalogs during reading workshop,…
Organic? Whole wheat? Whole Foods? Who cares? A lot of us. But maybe we shouldn’t. Or at least, maybe we shouldn’t burden our kids with all our nutritional correctness. When my older son (now12) was in kindergarten, he came home with a keen interest in cans. Not to build towers with, or roll down the stairs. He wanted to read the labels, because his teacher had been showing the class all about sodium, fructose and calories. So much for story time. Anyhow, those kindergarteners must’ve been mighty advanced, because I’m a grown-up and I still have a hard time figuring…
Go outside and play! Michelle gets to say that now, because as of yesterday afternoon, the Obama girls have a place to go: Their own backyard playset, not much different from a whole lot of other backyard playsets in America — except that when you’re on the swings you can wave to that guy in the Oval Office. The whole thing looks lovely and even cozy — there’s a tree house (which will probably be protected by a very bored Secret Service guy, but still, cozy) — and a tire swing and a climbing rope, climbing ladder, climbing this, climbing…
Two scenes from Mexico, where my family just spent a week’s vacation. (Skip the envy. Nice weather, yes, but my husband slipped before we left and spent the whole time on crutches. Meantime, this was the general tenor of our kids’ conversation: “I just saw a stingray.” “No you didn’t.” “I did too!” “You just think you did.” “But I did!” “See?”) Anyway, that’s not the point — thank God. The point is to contrast two scenes. The first, in town: A Mexican boy of about 8, sweeping his home. Not its floor. Its roof. With no guardrails. Scene two,…
Perhaps you will recall, readers, a few months back when I asked for your input on the cover for my upcoming book, “Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry.” Overwhelmingly — 10 to 1 — you voted for the girl on the wall (versus the aviator boy). But a bunch of you added, “There should be a boy on the cover, too.” Amazingly, the publishers then found a photo with a girl on the wall — trailed by a boy! All right. Maybe someone Photo-shopped the fellow in. They don’t tell authors…