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More than an Adventure: Huck, Jim, & James
I’ve dipped my sneaker in the Mississippi. I was almost nine and my mother, brother, and I were on a month-long Greyhound bus trip across the United States. We stopped in Memphis, Tennessee so we could see the mighty river. I remember a lot of cobblestones leading down to the water and my blue denim Read more
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Two Wheels, Two Ways: A Novel and a Memoir of Long-Distance Bike Trips
It wasn’t until the third night of my bike trip through the Finger Lakes that I started reading The Breakaway by Jennifer Weiner. The first night I was so exhausted that I may have fallen asleep before my head hit the inflatable pillow. The second night I counted stars through the screen door of my tent instead Read more
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The Girls Who Got Me to Read This Book
Her shiny blond hair brushes the black leather of her bomber jacket.Her browline glasses say smart but stylish.Her voice is enthusiastic but precise.Her grade in school? Sixth. Aria Storm Partridge goes to Sullivan West Elementary School and she was sitting at her family’s kitchen table with me. A few months earlier I had been in Read more
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Good People in the Bad Lands
There are many stories of earth’s creation, but the one an Ojibwe father tells his son in Louise Erdrich’s The Night Watchman is one of my favorites. “In the beginning,” the father says, sitting outside in the autumn sun, “the earth was covered with water . . . “ And when the Creator decided there should be Read more
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“Every night is girls night”
On the drive home from the Barbie movie not long ago, my niece and I cranked up the volume on songs by Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift, letting their powerful voices swirl around us. My niece had her hands firmly on the wheel, but with the sunset glow in our windshield, we felt like we Read more
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No Swimming Back to Shore: Rowing Solo Across the Atlantic
“The smell of salt air filled my nostrils. . . . I searched the southwest horizon, trying to find the light from Bodie Island. There were no landmarks. There was no land. I’m committed now; no diving over-board, no swimming back to shore.” Earlier in the summer I picked up Tori Murden McClure’s A Pearl in the Read more
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Reading In the Catskills 