Matthew insists on puffed sleeves

and Anne her e. But what's the difference between gray and grey?

When Frog and Toad Are More Than Friends

Who needs old closet case Dumbledore when Claire has put together a first-class list of out-n-proud GLBTQ-and-sometimes-Y fiction?

I've got an editorial in the upcoming Horn Book about the outing of Dumbledore, who in fact joins a long line of characters who coulda-woulda-shoulda be gay if the reader so inclines--like Shakespeare in Susan Cooper's King of Shadows as we discussed here a few weeks ago. Or Harriet the Spy. (Or Sport, Beth Ellen, or Janie.) Betsy and Tacy! Frank and Joe! Nancy and George! Or not, too--the point is that characters become your imaginary friends whose lives, loves, and destinies can become what you need them to be.

I'm reminded of 1965, the momentous year when Barbie became flexible. Durable characters always are.

Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves

There's been some discussion recently about blogging and inclusivity that came to mind when I read this article Martha showed me about kids and their cliques. Marion Hawthorne lives.

As Monica Edinger pointed out in the post linked above, it's not just kids. As Barbara Grizzuti Harrison wrote of her adolescence among the Greenwich Village Beats, "when I came of age in the 1950s, everyone one knew was an Outsider, and proud of it; and every Outsider belonged to a privileged Inner Circle of Outsiders, and then we grew up." But not really: when, decades later, Harrison reviewed Beat poet Diane Di Prima's memoir for the NYTBR, she devoted her entire review to proving that Di Prima hadn't been one of the cool kids, really. It never ends. I'm not sure it can, heck, I'm not sure it should. As I once pointed out in a different context, this is how we got Protestants.

And today I read that kids are compiling hit lists of their enemies. Should we worry or be relieved that the Times chose to run this as a "Fashion & Styles" story?