Quote from Mark Twain

As this year like no other finally lurches toward an end, I want to take a moment to appreciate my locale. Sonoma County, roughly an hour north of the Golden Gate Bridge, boasts natural beauty, state parks, diversity, and a…

OK, so here’s my take on the 7-1 shellacking of Brazil in today’s World Cup semi-final. In our house, we’ve been watching the matches in Spanish, so when I turned on the game and heard the commentators marveling about the…

Last week, in the wake of two back-to-back bilingual family night talks–each very well attended–I understood something that politicians must know instinctively. Namely, when addressing large audiences of widely divergent backgrounds, it’s necessary to speak in easy-to-digest terms. Not quite…

One reason why I add foreign phrases to my picture books is to welcome readers into a new world or mindset, or to acknowledge the mindset they may already share. (It’s easy to forget that millions of U.S. citizens, for…