Substituting Russian Literature for Sex Ed, and Other News

Film still from Anna Karenina (1935).

“Jonathan Franzen gripe” or “YouTube comment about saggy pants”? You be the judge.
Forget condoms and turn instead to Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Gogol, according to a Russian children’s ombudsman. Says Pavel Astakhov, “The best sex education that exists is Russian literature.”
The little-known original ending of “The Frog Prince” (spoiler: there was no kiss) sheds insight on why the Brothers Grimm were so grim.
A Stanford University study shows evidence that today’s kids are actually writing longer and better essays than people in Twitter-less 1917. However, according to a recent Pew Research poll of teachers, children are also writing too informally.
A defense of buying books and never reading them.

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