When children are born with disabilities or become disabled in childhood, parents often experience bewilderment: they find themselves unexpectedly in another world, without a roadmap, without community, and without narratives to make sense of their experiences.
Amanda Apgar's book The Disabled Child: Memoirs of a Normal Future (U Michigan Press, 2023) tracks ... Show More
Nov 19
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even tod ... Show More
54m 29s
Sep 2023
Kristal Brent Zook, "The Girl in the Yellow Poncho: A Memoir" (Duke UP, 2023)
At five years old, Kristal Brent Zook sat on the steps of a Venice Beach, California, motel trying to make sense of her white father’s abandonment, which left her feeling unworthy of a man’s love and of white protection. Raised by her working-class African American mother and gra ... Show More
30m 20s
Oct 2018
Jacqueline Rose ,”Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018)
I left the kitchen radio on while reading Jacqueline Rose‘s Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018) in preparation for this interview. It was June. Putting the book down for a minute to get a glass of water, I heard a news report that the children ... Show More
54m 11s
May 2023
Leah Phillips, "Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
The heroic romance is one of the West's most enduring narratives, found everywhere, from religion and myth to blockbuster films and young adult literature. Within this story, adolescent girls are not, and cannot be, the heroes. They are, at best, the hero's bride, a prize he wins ... Show More
57m 28s
Apr 2024
childhood emotional neglect part 5: sociopathic, childlike, and well-meaning-but-neglected-themselves parents
<p>While this is far from the final episode of our mega-series exploring the impacts of Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), this does mark the final episode exploring the various dysfunctional parenting styles that can contribute to its development. Join me for part five, whe ... Show More
1h 48m
Dec 2021
Take a Look, it's in a (Banned) Book
<p>Jerry Craft’s graphic novel <a href="https://jerrycraft.com/books/new-kid/" target="_blank"><i>New Kid</i></a> has won multiple awards, made the New York Times Best Sellers List, and is beloved by children across the country.But this year, <i>New Kid </i>made headlines for a d ... Show More
31m 29s
Jul 2022
The Sunday Read: ‘The Books About Sex That Every Family Should Read’
<p>How do you teach your child about sex? It’s a perennial question that has spawned hundreds of illustrated books meant to demystify sexual intercourse.</p><p>But for the Canadian author Cory Silverberg, there was something lacking. Silverberg, who uses they/them pronouns, felt ... Show More
26m 53s
Aug 2023
465- An Open Conversation with Temple Grandin – Autism Expert, Author, and Scientist
<p>Temple Grandin, Ph.D., a prominent author, scientist, and esteemed professor at Colorado State University, talks about her journey growing up with autism in an era when children were routinely institutionalized following a diagnosis — and what helped her to follow her passions ... Show More
1h 2m