Today is filled with gratitude:

My father came through his surgery fine and is out of intensive care.

• Please, please, please tell those you love that while there are the classic signs of heart attack--chest pain, or at least chest discomfort, that comes on suddenly--there are other signs as well: pressure, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, lack ( Read more... )

Linkage first:

The Wall Street Journal Article by Meghan Cox Gurdon.

Responses by:

Laurie Halse Anderson: As always, Laurie's analysis is complete, denying neither how hard it is to be a teen, or to be a parent. She's also spot on about the difference between reportage and op-ed, which Gurdon's article clearly is.

Kyle Cassidy: I especially like the ( Read more... )

Fearless Friday explores gender. (Icon via garwlbanan)

Unfortunately, the -less is missing from today's post. Because young gay men seem to be committing suicide these days in response to bullying.

On September 9, Billy Lucas of Greensburg, Indiana, hung himself after other students bullied him, called him gay and telling him to kill himself. ( Read more... )

Fearless Friday icon via garwlbanan

Don't get me wrong--I am a huge fan of the vlogbrothers, aka Hank and John Green. I especially enjoy the way they've brought together nerdfighteria to increase the awesome and decrease world suck. They're do a whole lot of good by bringing connecting people who otherwise wouldn't find each other. They also usually ( Read more... )

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I knew I was going to enjoy Will Grayson, Will Grayson. John Green has yet to write anything I haven't fallen for, hook, line, worm and sinker. I've also enjoyed David Levithan's many novels. And with Let It Snow and Nick and Norah's Inifite Playlist, we know they write well with others. So yesterday afternoon I settled down to enjoy Will Grayson,  ( Read more... )

Time to announce the Awe-Gust Prize winners--Three people or organizations who blow us away with their efforts to increase the Awesome in the world.

Drum roll, please:

Click to view

The First Awe-Gust prize goes to John Green. But he has to share it with his brother Hank.

John Green's four books--"may I have some more please, sir?"--are books that I wish had ( Read more... )

I'm betting most of us know about the Vlog Brothers and Nerdfighteria (sounds like some new comic book when it's put that way, doesn't it?).

But this video, celebrating "Hanko de Mayo," has got to be one of the most inspiring things I've seen. We talk a lot about people, especially kids and adolescents, spending too much time on the Internet, but ( Read more... )

Thanks to John Green for posting this completely excellent video about  all the things we all need to be doing these days to market our books--even before there is a book. This is the most entertaining presentation I've seen on the subject. But I wouldn't expect anything less from someone who knows that Vermonters gave the world both the Dewey ( Read more... )

This week the Vermont Department of Libraries announced that John Green's Looking for Alaska has won the 2007-08 Green Mountain Book Award. This is the third year of the award, which was previously won by Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper (2006-07 and Angela Johnson's First Part Last (2005-06). This award is chosen by students in grades 9-12 who ( Read more... )