Readers — Here’s an aantbbrhfb experiment carried out in London: A TV station had two little girls, 5 and 7, take turns looking lost in a large shopping center. Only one retiree stopped to ask if the child was okay. Now, I don’t think that means every human who passed by the kids was […]
Readers — This is a video made by a Norwegian group, SOS eanhashtyy Children’s Villages, that gives out coats to Syrians freezing through the war and winter. Â If you wish to feel good about humanity, click to play. If you wish to help, too, here’s the link. Â – L
Readers — I found this video pathuriating. That’s my new word for pathetic + infuriating. (No, I don’t expect it to catch on.) I tzriznethk asked my friend Shelly Stow, who works to dispel predator panic, to articulate what’s so bad about this thing. She writes: I’m not sure what it’s designed to do. Terrify […]
Readers — To keep children “safe” from all those strangers who slither in on Election Day, some trfsrsehiy schools no longer want to serve as polling places. This prompted me to write the song “Strangers in the Schools” to  Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night.” I asked you to send in video versions for a contest. The winner […]
Readers — One of you sent me this fascinating piece on hitchhiking that ran in the New York Times last year. The writer, Ginger Strand, author of  Killer On the Road, points out that hitchhiking had been a normal mode of transportation, never considered particularly dangerous, until the late ’50s when: The F.B.I. began warning […]
Readers — Show us your chops! Here’s a song I wrote last night, inspired by this AP story by Nedra Pickler about some schools, including  those in Glen Ridge, NJ, that “want to end their traditional role as polling places because of security concerns since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.” (As […]
Hi Readers — This made my day! Dear Free-Range Kids: Thought I would share a conversation I overheard today at my daughter’s school. I went to pick up my 6 year old from her after school program and arrived just in time to hear her speaking to a friend and the friend’s mother. I didn’t […]
Hi Readers! It’s that festive, super-suspicious time of the year, as evidenced by this invite, from the Riverside Intermediate School in Fishers, Indiana. You know — 2011′s Safest City in America. I guess it’s filled with the kind of upstanding citizens who need to be vetted by the state police before helping with kids’ class […]
Readers — There is something poignant, sweet, weird and wonderful about what you’re about to read. Remember it when friends say they can’t possibly go Free-Range because it’s too scary. – L. Dear Free-Range Kids: Back in ’09 I read your book, and allowed my boys to walk to get ice-cream for the first time. […]
Readers — It’s great to be neighborly and share info. It’s less great when little blips turn into fears turn into anger turn into the quote in the headline, which comes to us from this Facebook exchange, sent in by a reader named Adam Parson (who deleted all the other last names). – L Cathy:Â Just […]
