The Kids Are All Right

Kids these days? They're all right with me, that's for sure.

I know, because on Friday night I had the opportunity to spend time with a wonderful group of them: Seniors from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School in Rumson, NJ. A bright and lively group, they'd just finished reading Finn and were bursting with insightful questions. (The course they've been taking is called Narratives of Culture: Introduction to Issues of Critical Reading. It's part of Syracuse University's Project Advance, a program that brings university coursework to high school classrooms.)

We met at River Road Books in Fair Haven, and between the students and the rest of the audience—including a book club or two—the crowd was a bit bigger than expected. So we risked moving out onto the sidewalk to have enough room. The evening was lovely, though, and the foot traffic was light and the audience was as attentive as could be, and altogether it added up to an evening I'll probably never forget.

Later this week I'll be visiting some book clubs by phone, and getting ready to travel to Philadelphia to receive the Athenaeum Literary Award. If you'd like to schedule a phone visit for your own book club, check out Random House Reader's Circle.