I am an educator and neuroscientist who studies how the brain learns to read and what happens when a young brain can't learn to read easily, as in the childhood learning challenge, developmental dyslexia.

The act of learning to read added an entirely new circuit to our hominid brain's repertoire. The long developmental process of learning to read deeply changed the very structure of that circuit's connections, which rewired the brain, which transformed the nature of human thought.

There's an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it. It is a very hopeful principle when applied to critical thought in the reading brain because it implies choice.

Deep reading refers to a whole continuum of processes that include some of the most important things about thinking and how we connect thought to what we read - critical analysis, analogical reasoning, how we infer from the text, how do we take another's perspective.

It's hard to strike that balance: to tell a kid that life isn't fair, but also recognize and enforce in them the reality that their choices matter.

So, you know, parenting is a very intimate and amazing experience and one of the best experiences of my life.

If you're a young person who wants to become an actor, it's really important to walk into a casting room with a sense of yourself and some life experience. You can really delight a room and have them already choose you before you've even said a word!

A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.