Imagine growing up in a home where your parent was an alcoholic or mentally ill, where your parents divorced or your father abandoned the family, where domestic abuse or arguments occurred every day, where your brother was a drug addict or your sister was disabled, where your parents lost their jobs and food was scarce, or where you yourself were abused or suffered mental or physical illness.

Children growing up in such a household – and individuals in our community have – spent their early years in a stressful and unhealthy environment, making it very difficult for them to develop or

It’s not one of those urgent problems that insist on being solved immediately. And there’s not a lot of information to help us know what to do. And we’re not sure what criteria to use to make a decision. And we don’t even know what the ideal stance should be!

It’s children and books – or, more specifically, secular books. What can we, what should we, allow our children to read? It’s one of the predicaments of summer, when children have more time to read – although some children are insatiable all year round.

By now, the dilemma plagues a second generation