Near my apartment there is a cemetery sandwiched between the river and a main road. If you walk long enough hugging the path near the river you will see a gravestone partially obscured by flowers. If you push aside the leaves, you find a black and white picture of a young couple smiling warmly at the camera. Below, it states that the man was killed … Continue reading Good Literature Is Not Self Help: A Critique of ‘The Alchemist’
Male protagonists are a dime a dozen, but not a particularly diverse bunch. Take any popular movie or video game and the marketing for it will likely feature a tall muscular white man with short dark hair holding a weapon, staring towards whatever enemy looms on the horizon. Plenty of exceptions exist, but when in doubt writers seem to fall back on the same sort … Continue reading Atticus Finch Is the Male Hero We Need Today
The Giver is the book that got me into reading. Oh sure, I had read lots of books before, but they were always just stories. Stuff happened until there was no more book left to read and you moved on without a lot of thought into what it all meant. The Giver was different. I remember being entranced by the story in the 7th grade, … Continue reading Why ‘The Giver’ Is a Great Teen Novel
