Put your children in danger: A guide for authors

At the same time as I am reading Virals, a young adult novel by Kathy Reichs, I have happened upon this YouTube video from Feminist Frequency (thank you to Our Feminist Playschool for the direct) reviewing the book The Hunger Games:


The whole video's very interesting, as are Anita Sarkeesian's other works, but I just want to pull out one teensy tidbit that relates to the novel Virals as well as the whole oeuvre of children's literature.

Anita says that she finds it unbelievable that the parents in The Hunger Games wouldn't stand up and refuse to let their children be sacrificed.

Oh, yes. Totally. But that's viewing it as an adult and being all reasonable and stuff. Young adult and children's fiction depends on adults — and parents in particular — being ineffectual, powerless, cruel, or entirely absent.

In celebration of a good novel: Kathy Reichs vs. Bones

Actor Emily Deschanel and author Kathy Reichs on the set of Bones (image courtesy Fox)

I just checked out Bones Are Forever, by Kathy Reichs, from the library and realized it had been a long time since I felt that pull of a well-written novel. I found myself seeking out excuses to slip away to read, and I carried the book around with me in hopes odd respites would present themselves and need to be filled with a good book.

The TV show Bones, based on Reichs' work, is so goofily overwritten that it's astonishing it came out of the Temperance Brennan novels. I even like Bones, but it's so cringe-inducing for how two-dimensional the characters are and how painfully obvious each emotional revelation becomes.

It was refreshing to dive back into the original world of Tempe and enjoy Kathy Reichs' dry, exhaustively detailed, but fascinating peeks into the world of forensic anthropology — with some shootouts and kidnappings along for the thrills, of course.

Poems for Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop — Week 5: Enjoy

We're sharing our final poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:

Week 5:

Enjoy

This week — I can't believe it's our last! — we're embracing the camaraderie of parenthood and reveling in our children's joy and creativity.

If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog, link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!