I did not set out to write a series of "boy books." I am a boy and have been since I was born, so perhaps it was inevitable. But a recent Twitter conversation on the topic of writing for girls vs. boys among middle grade writers, readers, and...

When I was young, I hated reading.

Every summer through elementary and middle school ended with tears and tantrums over summer reading I hadn't done and refused to do.

Sure, there were a few books I endured because I had to, and one or two that I sort...

This Wednesday. March 9th, is World Read Aloud Day, when people in all 50 states and in over 50 countries will share the power of reading with their communities and acknowledge the 774 million people around the globe who cannot read or write. Two-thirds of those people are...

Inevitably, I am asked why I choose to write for children. I have, after all, written two "real" books, heavy tomes on heavy subjects for serious-minded readers. What, people wonder, could have possessed me to bring myself down to the level of a ten year...

Back in 2001 I met a young Congolese orphan who was living as a refugee in Tanzania. I shared his story in One Day The Soldiers Came: Voices of Children in War, but I was reminded of him the other day by an email I received from

In his latest column for the Jerusalem Post, Daniel Gordis -- a rightly admired Jewish thinker of the conservative ilk -- wades into the war of words between the left-leaning New Israel Fund and the right-leaning campus organization Im Tirzu. He takes as his jumping off point the...

This fall, I accomplished a daunting right of passage for any Jewish boy with literary inclinations: The Jewish Book Tour, one of the stranger experiences in modern publishing. It is also one of the most amazing. The Tour, organized by the Jewish Book Network, sends Jewish authors or authors of...

President Obama has just announced his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, which involves an aggressive counter-insurgency operation, sending in an additional 30,000 troops. As IAVA's Paul Rieckhoff notes, the President laid out his plan "without using the word "veteran" and without articulating any back-end support for our...

A Marine Corps officer once showed me a map of the world that indicated areas of future concern for the United States military. A swirl of color raced around the equator, sweeping through sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East, engulfing parts of Asia. The map struck me because...

The current attention on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, thanks to the historic visit to Goma by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, makes me think of Xavier.

When I met him in January 2002 in a center for the demobilization of child soldiers in the eastern DRC,...

Hillary Clinton clearly learned about the power of technology from her primary campaign. She has a Senior Adviser on Innovation on her staff at the State Department and has taken the tools that launched Barack Obama to the White House into Africa on her current diplomatic mission. On twitter, #HillaryAfrica...