On the face of it, at school, Acia Johnson was a miracle. The story we all dream of — long for — for the children of America’s tough inner cities.
She was 14, all smiles, and — in spite of a tough life at home — Acia Johnson was on her way to better things. Straight [...]

William Damon is one of the world’s leading scholars on adolescence and human development. And when he looks around the world, he sees a growing problem.
It’s not just that young adults don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. It’s not simply that they won’t leave home. No, it’s that and more: [...]

A big sister’s nailpolish and eyeshadow. Mom’s high heels. Rites of passage–and good fun–for many young girls.
But these days, girls are digging deep into their piggybanks and hitting the malls. Glitter products, pedicures, mini-makeovers.
These tweens, as they’re called, are now spending $51 billion of their own pocket money. And marketers, sponsoring birthday parties and sleepovers, [...]

One in five children in America today is a child of immigrants. And those numbers are only rising.
Yet as the immigration debate rages, the real lives of those children are too often invisible. Transplanted to a new country, they struggle to master a new language — and a new culture. Some will thrive in school. [...]

Sometimes a novel’s plot is unlikely. Sometimes it’s ripped straight from life — or life we can easily imagine. Novelist Tom Perrotta’s latest book, “The Abstinence Teacher,” is the second type.
Ruth is a broad-minded sex-ed teacher at the local high school — in a suburb where evangelical Christians are taking charge of the local culture. [...]

School shootings and the shadow of youth violence around them are very much in the news these days. In the last decade — from Columbine, to Amish country, to last week’s deadly shooting in a Cleveland school and images of an angry Philadelphia teen’s shocking arsenal — the headlines have become almost routine.
Gun. School. Mayhem. [...]