“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space,” – Douglas Adams,The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Ever since the 1950s, us humans haven’t been able to stop sending […]
Olivia Tooker
Black History Month Reads
If you only read one book this month for Black History Month, make it We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s a collection of eight essays — each from a year in President Barack Obama’s presidency — that were previously published in the Atlantic. His essays are brilliant, thoughtful, and complex — […]
Hygge by Olivia Tooker
Hot chocolate, candles, and sweaters. Those twinkly lights everywhere. Friends over for a nice, hot meal. This may conjure up images of fall, but for people in Denmark this is a year round lifestyle. Denmark is one of the happiest nations in the country despite their dark and chilly winters, with strong winds. So why […]
So You Want to be A Writer – Olivia Tooker
You’re staring at a blank sheet of paper: it stares back. It might be a leaf of notebook paper, the first page of a journal, or the digital blank sheet on a computer screen. You’re either taping your writing utensil, or watching that slim black line blink and blink and blink, waiting for you to […]
National Volunteer Week: Thank You, Volunteers
Volunteers: You Rock! The first definition of a volunteer, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “a person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service.” The simple definition is “a person who does work without getting paid to do it.” And while both definitions will do, it vastly underestimates the value of a […]
The Caldecott and Newbery Medal Winners
A boy and his grandmother take the bus. A live bear inspires a classic honey-loving character. A girl learns roller derby but her best friend wants to learn ballet. These are just a few of the plots of new award-winning titles in children’s literature. The Association for most prestigious awards given are the John Newbery […]
Read All About a Galaxy Far, Far Away by Olivia Tooker
Star Wars fans have reawakened all over the globe: little ones seeing light saber fights for the first time and old ones getting buckets of nostalgia and glee. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is swiftly breaking box office records, already overtaking “Titanic” as the second highest-grossing film of all time domestically and threatening “Avatar’s” number […]
We’re All Mad Here by Olivia Tooker
“Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” In the summer of 1865, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson gave a little girl named Alice Liddell a story, starring herself, traveling into a fantastical world underground. He published the story that fall under the pen name […]
I Still Believe in Fairy Tales
Albert Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” From imagining princesses trapped in towers and kitchens or princes transformed into frogs and beasts; little girls on their way to grandmother’s house or little boys crying […]