Author: Yardenne Greenspan

a painting of a father and son in a small wooden boat at sea

The Meaning of Parenting in Alistair MacLeod’s “The Boat”

We are often blind to the disparity between the behavior we instruct and the behavior we model for our children. But even more nuanced are the differences between the behaviors we try to emphasize—our aspirational behaviors—and the ones we try to downplay, which are often even more prominent.

side by side series of the covers mentioned in the piece

The Lingering Effects of Trauma in A Chronology of Water, Something Disguised as Love, and Smadar

Our new understanding of how trauma lingers inside and outside of the body has expanded to include not only relationships between peers of the same age group, but seems to have grown over time to include a discussion of how adults teach children about their place in the world, and, relatedly, about physical and emotional mistreatment, sexual or not.

Cover of "The Cooking Gene" by Michael Twitty, with a photo of the author sitting in front of a green building holding a bowl of food

Tracing Ancestry in The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South

Throughout his life, the kitchen was the place where truth always found Michael Twitty. It was where he first came out to his mother. Where he first felt kinship toward Jewish tradition. And where he decided to delve as deeply as possible into the culinary history of his ancestors.