‘Sex, Drugs and Asperger Syndrome’

With Sex, Drugs and Asperger Syndrome (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016), Luke Jackson offers A User Guide to Adulthood.

When he was 13, Jackson wrote Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence. Now 26, Jackson has accumulated “an entire lifetime’s worth of aging” since he wrote his previous book.

With forthright candor, Jackson offers guidance on various aspects of life — including work, education, bullying, friendship, intimate relationships and the use and abuse of drugs.

Bags from give-away materials

Each of these bags is one-of-a-kind and these two are the only two like them there are. Anywhere. In the world. I made them out of repurposed materials. The handles were strips of wool fabric, the decorative panels came from chair upholstery and the body fabric bore evidence of pleating — possibly curtains or a skirt. I feel good that this bag “closes the loop” by salvaging valuable materials and giving them new life.

‘Rules’ is problematic Schneider award recipient

Continuing with my discussion of the Schneider Family Book Awards: I struggled with this next part’s social acceptability.

Would expressing concern about a prior award recipient be “second-guessing” a past committee, possibly inviting defensiveness, or would it demonstrate the need for nominated titles to be considered carefully?

Here goes:

For discussion of a problematic Schneider award recipient, I ask that the committee read a review of Rules by Cynthia Lord, the 2007 middle-school winner.

‘Commitment’ shouldn’t obligate children to stay in abusive friendships

A 2014 article by writer Amy Joyce for The Washington Post showed up this week in my Facebook feed. In it, Harvard psychologist Richard Weissbourd and his colleagues with the “Making Caring Common Project” offer five strategies to raise moral and caring children.

‘Meh’ means ‘Merry Christmas’

“Meh! Meh!” Starfire says when she attacks wrapping paper, or otherwise behaves like the joyous cat that she is. And so, in this hand-drawn card, “Meh” means “Merry Christmas.”