Welcome to the first Between the Bookends column of 2018. We’ve made a few changes to make the site better for our readers and Between the Bookends has also changed a little. Read More
My son asked me, “Why do we have International Women’s Day?” And frankly, I wasn’t sure I was bold enough to give him the honest answer. Read More
Does the toilet paper roll go on forwards or backwards? What’s the big deal about the seat being up or down? These are the kinds of arguments we have fought over too long. It’s time for a third party to come in and show us new solutions that don’t rely on dichotomies! Read More
What would you do if you could pick a President and her entire Cabinet from all the female ficitional characters in sci-fi and comics? GeekMom Karen lists her fantasy team. Read More
One of the things I like about sports is that it teaches us that race doesn’t matter. Read More
Here are five things Bremainers can take away from our favourite geeky passions to help process Brexit and what is to come. Read More
Sam, as an adult, black male, is feeling the full brunt of deeply ingrained social prejudices. The weight of history. And, horrifyingly, he is losing to it. Read More
This election season, are there political lessons we should learn from the Star Wars prequels? Read More
We raise our children to be the bosses of their own bodies. We teach them to dress and wash and feed themselves, and to keep their private parts private. But if our children happen to be daughters, there’s an oft-neglected aspect of self-care that we must impart: Voting. It may seem strange to count… Read More
The most recent copy of New Scientist just made it to our house. I rarely get my hands on this weekly until my offspring have read it (which may be why dinner table discussions around here are too scientifically advanced for me). But I managed to sit down with the magazine over coffee this… Read More
One of the most fun books to talk about during Banned Books Week is the lovable, adorable And Tango Makes Three. Even extreme penguin cuteness cannot warm the frozen shell around a book banner’s heart. Why? Because the penguins are (gasp!) gay. If you don’t know And Tango Makes Three, it’s the true story of Silo… Read More
I received a package of books for review several weeks ago, courtesy of Penguin Books. My eighteen-year-old, Brad, immediately picked up The Real State of America Atlas: Mapping the Truths of the United States by Cynthia Enloe and Joni Seager and thumbed through it. “This is going to be a good book,” he announced. Filled… Read More
Earlier this month, GeekMom Kris Bordessa wrote about the story of a Michigan woman, Julie Bass, who was being prosecuted for having a front yard garden. The Bass family put in the garden after their lawn had to be torn up due to a sewer line that needed to be repaired. I’ve been following Julie… Read More
Michelle Obama lives in arguably the most prestigious home in America. In 2009, she dug up a portion of the South Lawn and installed an organic vegetable garden to provide fresh produce for the White House kitchen. Short of the chemical companies who produce pesticides – definitely not allowed in an organic garden – who… Read More
When my older son was little, he would come home from school and make a beeline straight through the house to the backyard swing set. We called it swing therapy: after a day of staying on task and holding in fidgets, he would desperately need to decompress. Rain, snow, sleet or hail, he’d be out… Read More
The number of American political geeks under age eighteen is predictably low. I mean, why should kids geek out about something they can’t even participate in? The better question is: Why shouldn‘t they? Kids aren’t allowed to vote, but that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of understanding what’s going on around them. Besides, kids are natural… Read More
