A Southern friend of mine once told me that she moved to the West Coast because it was a place of destiny-making, a place where one could begin anew. But one of the first questions that she asked was, “Where do you all keep your history? Where is your Williamsburg?” …
On the way to downtown Seattle, there’s a freeway sign advertising a tourist attraction that’s always intrigued me: “Kubota Garden,” it says. I asked my friend, native Seattleite and Beacon Hill boy Omar Willey about it. “You’d know about it if you went to St. Paul school, which was the …
Renowned writer and illustrator Allen Say has authored over 15 books, mostly for children. Though he may be best known for his picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott-winning Grandfather’s Journey, he’s also begun to write hybrid memoir/graphic novels. The first of these, Drawing from Memory, tells the story …
There’s gravel crackling under our car wheels as we drive up my Auntie Nesan’s driveway. After we come to a stop, my husband Josh and I unbuckle our two little girls out of the backseat. We walk up to the house, trailing blankets and stuffed animals, and I tap on …
At one end of the porch of the Neely Mansion there’s a pile of broken bottles, ceramic shards, muddy pieces of metal. About twenty yards away, there’s a charred piece of wood attached to a small house. I am thinking about a conversation I’ve just had with Linda Van Nest, …
After school this week, the kids at my daughters’ elementary school are rushing over to the library. They’re clutching wrinkled envelopes filled with checks and dollar bills and carefully counted change. They throw down their backpacks by the computers and head straight for cardboard booths. It’s book fair week.
The lights flicker once, and people begin to move from the lobby into a long line.
Growing up in a family of voracious readers and three librarians, I was incredibly lucky to have books—almost as many as I wanted. I’ll never forget coming back from our trip to Japan to find that my auntie had left me the entire Anne of Green Gables series on my …
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