Commentary: Time to turn the page on children’s books as graduation gifts

As a writer for children and young adults, I can’t help but celebrate the genius of Dr. Seuss. But as an educator of anxious college graduates who often receive multiple copies of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” as graduation gifts, I believe it’s time we diversify our books-for-grads, choosing texts whose challenges are less abstract than howling Hakken-Kraks, Giving Trees and Little Princes. It’s a perennial and paradoxical phenomenon. At exactly the moment when America’s youth stand poised to grapple with the perils of real adulthood — when they are old enough to go to war or to finance a car —…

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