Noah Berlatsky

Katniss is the voice of conscience and morality in the film, and in The Hunger Games series as a whole. In the just released last film in the series, she tries repeatedly to avoid unnecessary deaths. She insists that refugees from an attacked base be given an escape route, for example, and exposes herself in an effort to help them.

If my wife and son had thought bubbles above their heads, like in the comics, you would be able to read them saying, "dog dog dog dog dog dog dog."

With the death of Leonard Nimoy, it's a good moment to pay tribute to (and question) his most famous character.

Iin a passionate Facebook thread last week, children's author Meg Rosoff rejected the idea that there are "too few books for marginalized young people," as librarian Edith Edi Campbell had suggested.

"I believe that, in order to address these problems, we need to first understand how we got here."

Talking about race can get you into a lot of trouble . . . especially if you don't have a lot of class power or status.

The founder of the brilliant fyeahblackrockmusic Tumblr talks racial politics, Kelis, and . . . the Doobie Brothers?

There's a good argument to be made that the earliest, and the best, rockabilly performers were women. Slicked-back, hiccuping, hopped up cool.

In the U.S., anti-Semitism is universally condemned. This means that, effectively, anti-Semitism doesn't exist.

Illicit passions aren't less enjoyable because they're illicit. Quite the contrary.