A Doll Comes To Visit

You are a fifth-grade girl who comes home from school to find a doll on your front porch. The doll looks like you, is dressed like you, and there is something about the eyes. Who left it? Why is it here? And what makes this doll so special?

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With a Little Help From My Friend

Jim Jenkins is an ace detective who solves the most difficult crimes. Yet he always works alone. Or does he?

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The Boy Who Could Wiggle His Ears

Learning how to wiggle your ears is really hard. But you can do it if you keep trying. And if you learn to keep trying, no problem is too big. So if you can wiggle your ears, you can do anything!

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Our Forgotten Link With Haiti

You don’t study history for long without developing a certain sense of irony. Recently our president was accused of talking disparagingly about Haiti (among other countries).   That’s why I was intrigued when I found an article entitled “How Haitians Helped Win The American Revolution” by Pooja Bhatia. Here’s the situation:  In 1779, colonial rebels laid

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The Charitable Side of Collecting

My friends know I’m a Disney collector.  For almost thirty years, I’ve belonged to the Disneyana Fan Club (DFC, originally the NFFC, http://www.disneyanafanclub.org/), and it’s been a very rewarding experience on many levels.  I know most people have their outside interests and passions, but I also realize occasionally these passions can get a bit… extreme. 

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Benjamin Franklin and Virtue

With all the virtue-challenged public figures these days, perhaps it’s time to go back to basics.  Founding fathers basics. One of the most fascinating founding fathers was Ben Franklin.  He had a remarkable life as a successful businessman, humorist, scientist, and public servant.  Did he have a secret? He may have.  I’ve been reading about

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The Right Way To Do Youth Sports?

I’ve been athletic all my life, but sometimes with very little success, so I’ve seen both sides, particularly in youth sports.  I was in Little League, where the competition for a team hat (never mind a uniform) was so fierce I rarely got one.  People in my hometown were such rabid fans other local communities

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The End of Chocolate?

Catches up on the news, I found something very disturbing January 2, 2018 on the Food and Wine website. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are predicting the source of chocolate, the cacao plant, is likely to go extinct, perhaps as early as 2050. The culprit is global warming.  Most of the

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Ringing in the New Year With New Life

New years are always a time for renewal, so I thought it appropriate to pass along some scientific news — “In 2017, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences, along with several dozen international collaborators, added 85 new plant and animal species to Earth’s tree of life, including 16 flowering plants, three scorpions, 10 sharks,

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