For younger readers · 9–16
For younger readers
You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.
— Madeleine L'Engle, on why she wrote for children
The 'Sea Peoples' Took the Blame for 3,000 Years — the Real Culprit Was the System Itself
Archaeologists have their own version of "the boogeyman is going to ge…
They Blew Up a Pile of Disco Records at a Baseball Game — What They Really Wanted to Torch Was the People Who Loved It
Picture this: you're fifteen, Black, working as an usher at a Major Le…
'What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up' Might Be the Wrong Question — Soul Almost Gets This Right
Joe Gardner had been waiting his whole life for this one show.
All Animals Are Equal — Until One Night, Someone Added Half a Sentence
Picture a farm gate with seven rules painted on the barn wall in big w…
Anxiety Isn't a Malfunction — It's the Dizziness of Being Free
The night before a test, you're staring at the ceiling, stomach in kno…
Ethics Professors Aren't Necessarily Better People Than You Are — A Sitcom Turned That Fact Into a Punchline
Picture this: you die. You open your eyes and find out you've been sor…
Firemen Whose Job Is Setting Books on Fire — Fahrenheit 451's Sharpest Prediction Is That We Stop Wanting to Read Long Before Anyone Burns a Single Page
Picture this: your job used to be putting out fires.
George Didn't Shoot Lennie to Punish Him — He Did It to Make the Call Himself, Before the Mob Could: The Hardest Truth in Of Mice and Men
Two guys with nothing to their names, walking from ranch to ranch toge…
Growing Up Isn't Caging the Monster Inside You — What the Red Panda in Turning Red Is Really About
You probably remember the images. Mei shoving a drawing under her bed…
He Calls the Whole World Phony. Then Admits He's the Best Liar You've Ever Met — Welcome to The Catcher in the Rye
Ever notice how much of what adults say is basically performance?
He Can See Past, Present, and Future — and Still Can't Stop the Holy War. That's the Most Dangerous Thing About Dune
If you've seen either of Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies, you probably…
He Knew Exactly Who Killed His Father. So Why Did Hamlet Wait Four Acts to Act?
Have you ever known exactly what you needed to do, and exactly who you…
He Made a Life, Took One Look, and Ran — Frankenstein Asks: Who's the Real Monster?
If you built something with your own hands, and the second it opened i…
He Threw the Wildest Parties in New York and Never Danced at One — Gatsby Bet His Whole Life on a Green Light He Couldn't Reach
Every weekend all summer long, Gatsby's mansion stays lit up until the…
Hitler Burned the Books. Stalin Rewrote Them — That's the Truly Terrifying Part of 1984
Have you ever known, somewhere in the back of your mind, that somethin…
In Inception, Every Dream Inside a Dream Plants an Idea a Little Deeper — Whose Idea Is It, Really, Once It Surfaces?
Cobb has a strange job: he breaks into other people's dreams and steal…
In Interstellar, Dad Spends One Hour on an Alien Planet While His Daughter Ages Seven Years on Earth — Can Love Actually Cross Time and Space
Cooper is a farmer who used to be a pilot.
In Moby-Dick, the Thing Ahab Bets the Whole Crew's Lives to Beat Isn't Really a Whale
Say something hurt you badly once and took a real piece of you.
In My Neighbor Totoro, a Family Bows to a Tree — Miyazaki's Films Believe Everything Has a Soul
When the Kusakabe family first moves into their new house out in the c…
In Spirited Away, Chihiro's Parents Eat Their Way Into Pigs — What Happens When Somebody Takes Your Name
Chihiro is ten years old when her family takes a wrong turn on the way…
No Adults, No Police, Just Boys — Weeks Later They're Hunting Each Other. The Beast Was You All Along.
Ever wondered what would happen if your whole class got dropped on a d…
No Money, No Name, No Standing — Where Jane Eyre Got the Nerve to Say 'Our Souls Are Equal'
Have you ever been looked down on in front of everyone?
No Pain, No Fights, No Choices — Would You Move In? The Giver Says the Price Is Calling It 'Release'
Would you move into a community with no war, no hunger, no poverty, an…
Nobody Can Beat Him, and He's Miserable About It — One-Punch Man's Strongest Hero Has the Emptiest Life
Picture this: you turn on god mode in a video game.
She Judged Darcy a Jerk in Five Seconds, Then Believed a Liar Almost as Fast — That's the Trap Pride and Prejudice Sets
Have you ever met someone and decided, within a minute, exactly what k…
Slaughterhouse-Five Makes Its Hero Come Unstuck in Time — Because War Memories Never Wait Their Turn
If you had to write a book about a single night when over a hundred th…
Spider-Man Recast Himself Three Times. Each Time, So Did America.
You've probably seen more than one Spider-Man.
The Book They Sell as a Classic Romance Is Actually a Revenge Bill Heathcliff Spent Two Generations Paying Off
If someone treated you like a servant your whole childhood (bullied yo…
The Elephant Who Heard a Voice Nobody Else Could — And the Bedtime Book You Never Actually Read
You probably had this one read to you as a kid: an elephant, cooling o…
The Real Death Isn't Your Heart Stopping — It's Being Forgotten: What Coco Gets Right
Every year on Día de los Muertos, the land of the dead grows a bridge:…
The Recluse the Whole Town Feared Ended Up Saving Her Life — In To Kill a Mockingbird, Another Innocent Man Wasn't So Lucky
Have you ever been scared of a place as a kid, and not really been abl…
The Two Families Had Feuded So Long They Forgot Why — Romeo and Juliet Paid the Bill
Have you ever watched two groups of people go at each other, asked "wa…
Three Thousand Years Ago, the Greatest Warrior Alive Won His Ten-Year Trip Home With His Brain — And His Wife Back Home Was Running the Exact Same Play
Ask someone to name the toughest warrior in Greek mythology and they'l…
Three Witches Told Him He'd Be King — That's the Line That Made Him Destroy Himself
Imagine someone tells you, dead serious, that you're going to be the b…
Turning Into a Bug Wasn't What Got Him Abandoned — Not Earning Was: The Real Horror of The Metamorphosis
You wake up one morning and you've turned into a giant bug, and the fi…
Costco: The Store That Won't Take One Extra Penny From You
Picture this: you and your parents pull up to a supermarket, and a gua…
Nintendo's Wild Ride: How to Win, Lose, and Win It Back
Picture the one kid in school who owns literally every game console.
The Castle That Almost Got Sold Off: Disney's 42-Year Comeback
You've probably seen The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, or The…
The Invisible Giant Inside Your Phone: TSMC and Grandpa Morris Chang's Story
Pick up your phone. Or your game console.
The Secret Behind the Plumber: Nintendo's 101-Year Comeback Story
Picture this: you hit start on a game console, and a short guy with a…
The Skunk Works: 143 Days in a Smelly Tent That Changed Flight Forever
There's a plane that flies faster than a bullet (about two-thirds of a…
3,400 Wasp Species, One Tiny Forest: Why Scientists Think We've Been Undercounting Insects All Along
Before this episode even got started, host Regina Barber asked her co-…
A Brain-Squeezing Trip to Space, an Ocean Full of Fertilizer, and a 2,000-Year-Old Hitchhiker
Picture this: you've just spent six months floating around the Interna…
A Horse Can't Tell What a Jacket Is — but It Never Forgets What It Learned Ten Years Ago
Picture a horse named True. He's four or five years old, wandering aro…
A Magnetic Field That Sings, an Ocean Under the Ice, and a Black Hole on the Run: Space News Went Wild This Week
Did you know Earth's magnetic field actually makes noise?
Gemstone Clouds, a Bullied Moon, and a Storm That Lit Up Cuba: This Week in Space Got Weird
Picture a planet where the clouds aren't made of water vapor.
Moon Robots, a Cosmic Cold Case, and a 24-Mile Icelandic Slog: This Week in Space Got Wild
Picture two robots the size of baseballs, dropped on the moon.
Moving to Mars: 5 Truths That Pop the Hype Bubble
The episode opens with a highlight reel of hype.