This Month

"When children think up stories," cultural critic Walter Benjamin once wrote, "they are like theater-producers who refuse to be bound by 'sense.'" Such irrepressibly creative visions of the world — found in books about and for kids — are at the heart of our selections this month. Karen Russell evokes the growing pains of adolescents raised by wolves, while Jonathan Franzen chronicles his thoroughly average youth. Uzodinma Iweala's searing novel depicts a West African child soldier's brutal upbringing. Precocious narrators helm both Millhauser's cult novel of childhood genius and Marisha Pessl's charmingly ADD debut novel. We close with a feature on the delicate art of writing and illustrating for kids, through an appreciation of a lost classic called Who Needs Donuts? — because, really, who doesn't?
- Toby Warner