Midwestern_Childhood

Thank you for your defense of YA literature. As someone who teaches it (including Looking for Alaska for the last few years), I'm constantly in the position of defending it. Our society seems to have a built-in prejudice against the young, as though if books marketed for young people it can't really be truly good, as if good writers somehow become lesser when writing with younger readers in mind. But I've also had the pleasure of teaching YA lit to older adults, who react in surprise at its complexity and the daring experimentations in form and content that great YA writers have been doing in the past two decades.

I call YA literature "the literature of becoming": it's about young people trying to figure who they are, who they want to become, and how to do that. Those aren't issues that disappear magically with an 18th or 21st birthday: they are deeply human questions that affect us all our lives. It's why Great Expectations and Catcher in the Rye can still resonate with younger and older readers, even though they are about young people. Your books do that well. I love how they (esp. LfA) ask big questions and play with them in intelligent ways. Thank you for the books you have written, and I'm looking forward to reading your new novel.

Obviously I'm not OP, but I've read about an indigenous chef who is working to raise awareness of and access to indigenous foods. Look up the Sioux Chef. (Which is such a great pun....)

One of my favorite memories of the last time I went to London was walking around that first evening and seeing a blue plaque on a house. When we stopped to read it, it honored Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, two of my favorite books when I was a kid and which whetted my ambition to visit England when I was an adult. So this is a lovely chance to say thank you to the Blue Plaque organization: I always stopped to read the plaques whenever I saw them, and I learned a lot as I did!

Your choices and work are amazing. My husband and I often read the obit to each other: whoever gets their hands on the magazine first usually does the read aloud. You showcase amazing lives of people, some of whom were wonderful, a few of whom were terrible, some of whom made terrific albeit quirky impacts on the world. (I'm thinking just now of the one you did on Adrian Coles, who worked to save Britain's hedgehogs.) I just want to say thank you for so many wonderful informative tributes that have enriched my life to read: it is always worth taking the time to remember their contributions, mourn their loss, and celebrate their lives.

You look good! (Probably better than you feel!) I had major surgery last year, so I empathize with you. Best of luck to you with your recovery: be patient with the present, stay upbeat with your eyes on the future, take it slow and easy, and do your physical therapy! I hope that next year at this time you're fully recovered and living life fully!