Noah Berlatsky

Writing can be hard and uncomfortable and precarious—but it's hard and uncomfortable and precarious in the way that any job can be.

Katniss is the voice of conscience and morality in the film, and in The Hunger Games series as a whole. In the just released last film in the series, she tries repeatedly to avoid unnecessary deaths. She insists that refugees from an attacked base be given an escape route, for example, and exposes herself in an effort to help them.

Illicit passions aren't less enjoyable because they're illicit. Quite the contrary.

With the death of Leonard Nimoy, it's a good moment to pay tribute to (and question) his most famous character.

As a parent, you tend to assume that you have some say in forming your child's mental landscape. Then Santa comes along.

The founder of the brilliant fyeahblackrockmusic Tumblr talks racial politics, Kelis, and . . . the Doobie Brothers?

The first graphic novel to win a Caldeott gives children the chance to be adults, and adults the chance to be kids.

The cover for A-Force is a combination of tired trope and deodorant ad. Female empowerment can do so much better.

Who is memorialized in death has everything to do with race, class . . . and who you were in life.

There's a good argument to be made that the earliest, and the best, rockabilly performers were women. Slicked-back, hiccuping, hopped up cool.