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  Book Review: Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” is one of the important books of our time. It has garnered a spot on the New York Times best seller list for over a year and was a Wall Street Journal Top Ten Book of 2024. A copy of it was sent by Arkansas Governor S.H. Sanders to the governors of every US state and territory to try and rally them around the issues the book discusses. High level endorsements and academic criticism abound. It is one of those rare nonfiction titles that people know about, even if they haven’t read it (yet). So, why all the fuss? In a nutshell, “The Anxious Generation” attempts to explain why kids raised with an ever-increasing dependance on smartphones are experiencing an alarming rise of mental health disorders (depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, self-harming, suicide, etc.), and what we can and should do about it.           “An urgent and provocative read on why so many kids ar...

 Book Review: This is a hard review for me to write. Libba Bray’s “A Great and Terrible Beauty” (first book in the three-part “ Gemma Doyle” series) gets decent reviews and was picked by the American Library Association as one of the best young adult books of 2004. Students I have talked to about it seem to like it too, so why am I so underwhelmed by this modern Gothic novel? The story begins in India where teen protagonist Gemma Doyle witnesses strange paranormal terrors culminating in the murder of her mother. She is subsequently sent to a girl’s boarding school in London for a fresh start. Here she discovers friendship, belonging, and mysterious connections to her mother’s past which lead to otherworldly experiences of her own. Enough teenage angst, sexual yearning, and petty rivalry here to fill the river Thames. The opening sequence of the book in India was pleasurably tense, featuring a heart pounding chase scene, some shadowy violence with supernatural undertones, a sp...