Virginia Johnson

"Avi!" that was the nickname his twin sister called him when they were small. That was enough of a name for Avi (pronounced Ah-Vee) Wortis then, and it's still the name that he writes under today.

Avi came from a family who were passionate about radical politics and the arts. Family members in New York and Boston argued all the time, but in a loving way, so any dinner table discussion might turn into a free-for-all of exciting ideas.

Elaine Lobl Konigsburg has always loved reading. As a girl, she discovered the magic of The Secret Garden and learned about life in a middle-class English family from Mary Poppins. These stories became part of her childhood, and, as she relates in her excellent book of essays, TalkTalk: A Children's Author Speaks to Grown-ups, classic stories become a bridge between today's children and earlier generations.

What she was looking for as a child and did not find, was a reflection of her life in a Pennsylvania mill town. In classic books, the mothers were just that. The women in Elaine's neighborhood worked as maids for extra money. In classic tales, there were maids, but they were always on the sidelines, and the classroom rolls were filled with Smith's, Jones', Edwards', and the like. Where were the Ravinsky's, Machotka's, and Spinelli's?

Dockside in Liverpool, England, was an exciting place to be a kid. Growing up there, young Brian Jacques (pronounced "Jacks") was surrounded by a loving and hardworking family. When his seafaring uncles would stop by between voyages, Brian heard tales of faraway places and amazing adventures. He listened, fascinated as his relatives "painted pictures with words."

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the social scene, the bad news hits. That shot in your arm wasn't such a shot in the arm. In recent years, the doctors who designed the vaccine had to make a decision as to which strain to fight, Panama flu or Fujian flu. From their data, it looked like Panama would continue to grow strong and the beginnings of the Fujian strain would peter out.

Twenty years before Jamestown was founded, over 100 women, men, and children came to Virginia to try their luck at starting a colony. They arrived on the stormy shores of what we know now as North Carolina. They were not the first to land there. Two years before, another group of colonists, all men, gave up trying to settle Roanoke Island and sailed back to England. The supply ships arrived too late to save the abandoned first colony, but they left behind fifteen soldiers to mind the fort who soon vanished into the wilds, driven off by an Indian attack.

That wascally wabbit was a smart guy. Carrots, along with other orange and green fruits and vegetables, are good for the eyes! They're packed with vitamin A. People who don't get enough of this vitamin can develop severe vision problems, but a rabbit or a person who gets plenty of vitamin A will know that she's doing all she can to make her vision healthy.

Manassas. Fredericksburg. Chancellorsville. Richmond. Appomattox.

In these places and dozens of others, some too far away from civilization to be remembered, the sound of rifles and the drumming of hoofbeats echoed through the valleys and tore apart towns as the armies of North and South engaged in the terrible conflict that was the Civil War.

The long hot days of summer are coming, and with them there will be time for sports, time for camp, time to dream, and time to do. Time to start a diary or journal?

A journal can be written for only yourself, to write down the things that are important to you: lists of favorites (music, t.v., and movies), pictures of friends and family, and, of course, your innermost thoughts. Fun times deserve to be remembered, and sometimes writing about a bad situation can help you deal with it better as you think it through on paper. That kind of journal is personal, and you may not wish to share it with anyone.

What do the Earth, electric motors, and your computer all have in common?
These things are all influenced by magnets.

The Earth has a liquid metal core that acts like a bar magnet. It gets its magnetism from being near electrical currents beneath the surface. Because the Earth is not perfectly shaped, every so often the direction of the field will change. Scientists have found evidence that this has occurred at least 171 times over the past 71 million years. How do they know that? Magnets!