Lord of the Flies

Parents complicate things. They force you to change clothes, insist you come home before curfew, and demand to meet the people you’re heading out with for the evening. In other words, it’s hard to have adventures, fight crime, start a revolution against a dystopian government, or go on a killing spree when your parents are […]

There are a lot of things you shouldn’t do on a plane. You shouldn’t kick the seat in front of you. You shouldn’t be rude to the flight attendants. You shouldn’t load your oversized carry-on into the overhead storage compartment and take up all the space. But one thing you really shouldn’t do is start […]

The 1950s saw the emergence of literary lights including J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac, authors whose books questioned the status quo and the midcentury preoccupation with conformity. The decade’s best books were mired in the dark realities of recent history, and looked forward to seismic social shifts to come. Novelists explored cultural norms through timeless dystopic visions, and […]

Many of YA’s classic protagonists are so established as to become almost archetypal: Holden Caulfield railing against the phonies, sunny Anne Shirley challenging everyone’s notions of an orphan girl’s fortitude, Brian with his trusty hatchet. But what if we swapped the genders on these characters? With some creative genderbending that we think William Shakespeare would be […]