This should be easy, I thought as I prepared to enter high school. I didn’t expect to have any problems making friends or interacting with my classmates. Unfortunately, my confidence was shattered on the very first day of school, when I met the boy seated next to me in class.…
In my childhood farmyard in Pleasant Hill, New York, we always had an abundance of chickens roaming around looking for worms and bugs, scratching the ground for seeds, and generally living an easygoing, happy life. That’s one reason why, in spite of a modest food budget, I still always buy…
“Who are you here to see?” the petite dark-haired nurse asked as I sipped tea in the waiting area and scrawled in my journal. “My nephew,” I answered with a smile. “He’s asleep, though, so I’ll wait.” “Oh, he really needs visitors. He’s still a child,” she said in her…
Life is a series of judgment calls, big and small. “Is my colleague telling me the truth?” “Can I believe this advertiser’s claims?” Nearly every day you have to pass judgment on some situation, and your opinions and decisions often have consequences for the other people involved. The stakes may…
If you try to make your circle closed and exclusively yours, it never grows very much. Only a circle that has lots of room for anybody who needs it has enough spare space to hold any real magic. —Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927), American children’s writer If you approach each…