
I Ran a Backstreet Boys Website for Superfans
Twenty years ago, as the group’s Millennium album topped music charts, one writer found belonging in an online community she unwittingly helped create.
Twenty years ago, as the group’s Millennium album topped music charts, one writer found belonging in an online community she unwittingly helped create.
How one writer came to love the band’s dark, shimmering masterpiece as a teenager 30 years ago
Why one writer still reads the wildly popular books with a mixture of love and disappointment, 60 years after they were revised to remove racist content
The 1988 film introduced an iconic villain in Chucky—just one of many living toys that have haunted cinema for decades.
Growing up, one writer saw the beloved character as a mascot for the Latin American immigrant experience. Sixty years after Paddington’s debut book was published, his story still feels relevant.
On the show, men cry, embrace empathy, and are open of heart. Why one writer wishes he’d been able to watch it as a kid
Trauma and tragedy play a role in a lot of children’s literature. But it was J.K. Rowling’s series that helped me cope with almost dying.
Beloved by generations of Indian children like myself, the illustrated-book series Amar Chitra Katha also reinforced many forms of intolerance.
Released in 1927, the poignant children’s novel Gay Neck was written by an Indian immigrant who became the first person of color to win the Newbery Medal.
The franchise’s evolving complexity, its young protagonists, and its accessibility make it a particularly apt reflection of entering adulthood.
Growing up, I was told my favorite comic-book heroine was white. And yet her struggles always seemed uniquely similar to my own.
When the film debuted 15 years ago, it taught me that shaping a hybrid identity could be a beautiful, inventive, and at times lonely experience.
The famed Japanese animator and director created heroines who defied feminine stereotypes and showed me how to be at home in my own skin.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the young-adult historical fiction series showed me how people move forward after earth-shattering moments.
The children’s series inspired its young audience to appreciate the mysteries and power of language.
Jim Henson’s 1986 film understands at its core that youth is full of mystery, tricks, and danger.
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s popular book series championed emotional restraint—an approach I’ve come to both question and appreciate in adulthood.
Decades before the outcry against the Ghostbusters remake, a 1980s kids show tried—and failed—to subvert male-centric stories.
It has partly to do with a dearth of women behind the scenes, changing audience tastes, and an evolving industry.
The scrappy Belgian reporter was my childhood hero. Reading his books as an adult is a little more complicated.
For toymakers like Lego, where is the line between making products children love and telling kids how they should play?
The ’90s American sitcom was crucial in helping me understand blackness as a young girl of Nigerian descent growing up in Scotland.
Arnold Lobel’s beloved books taught children to understand and appreciate their individuality.
The uplifting Coloring Book makes profound use of Millennial nostalgia.
The black history icons I learned about as a child were larger-than-life—and they prepared me to grapple with America’s racial past.
As a young girl in a new country, I looked to the leader of the Autobots for lessons in fitting in.
A long love letter to the creator of the world’s greatest nature documentaries, on the eve of his 90th birthday.
Products marketed to children are more divided by gender stereotypes than ever, but the Internet is increasingly offering alternatives to Hot Wheels and Barbies.
The PBS-aired educational program 3-2-1 Contact was one of the best things on TV in the 1980s.
The series allowed children to build their own story—but it also created false perceptions about decision-making.
The classic children’s book, first published in 1978, is an early primer for young readers who will eventually find their way to more profound surrealism.
The long-running cartoon’s representation of Judaism was one of the first on television.
Their imaginations respond to being empowered against the things that terrify them.
Virtual playspaces of the 1980s encouraged openness and creativity, which would later become foundational values of the web.
Kids learn from podcasts, so why aren’t adults making more for them?
Nothing informed the writer’s work so much as his abiding fascination with mortality and menace.
Their history informs fantastical myths and legends, while American tales tend to focus on moral realism.
The hit Cartoon Network show, which is set for a reboot in 2016, appealed to kids and adults with its three subtly subversive, (super)empowered female leads.
The best horror film of 2014 understands that kids, especially very young ones, deal with loss much differently than adults do.
My favorite film as a kid was little-known, not-Disney, and not great. I'm fine with that.
Fifteen years ago, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events built a huge following among children–in part because it used highly self-conscious, experimental literary techniques.