First, Brandon Hicks applies his irreverent sense of humor to an illustrated story of three child innovators.
Next, in the Saturday Essay, Megan Burbank offers a funny, tender recollection of a difficult summer in New England following a breakup. She reads Lolita in the bathtub, drinks expensive coffee, and eats donuts with a friend until she feels “like sentient cotton candy, satiated and empty.” Astrology provides a kind of explanation, in the end, for heartbreak.
And in the Sunday Interview, Emily Gray Tedrowe talks to Louise Erdrich about her new book, LaRose, which begins with a tragic hunting accident and unspools in surprising directions. The father at fault decides to give his own son to the family of the boy he killed. This “traditional act of reparation” completes Erdrich’s thematically linked trilogy. She attributes some of her inspiration to her daughter, who single-handedly contradicts many of the negative stereotypes about girls in our society:
[Stereotypes are] so opposed to what I see daily with my daughter and her friends, who are so engaged and strong and varied in their interests…
