Anya Kamenetz – författare

The onset of COVID broke a 150-year social contract between America and its children. Tens of millions of students lost what little support they had from the government-not just school but food, heat, and physical and emotional safety. The cost was enormous.But this crisis began much earlier than 2020. In The Stolen Year, Anya Kamenetz exposes a long-running indifference to the plight of children and families in American life and calls for a reckoning.She follows families across the country as they live through the pandemic, facing loss and resilience: a boy with autism in San Francisco who gains a foster brother and a Hispanic family in Texas that loses a member to COVID, and finds solace when they need it most. Kamenetz also recounts the history that brought us to this point: how we thrust children and caregivers into poverty, how we over-police families of color, how we rely on mothers instead of infrastructure. And how our government, in failing to support our children through this tumultuous time, has stolen years of their lives.

The newest generation of children is exposed to ubiquitous technology, more than any generation that preceded them. They are photographed with smartphones from the moment they're born, and begin interacting with screens at around four months old. Is this good news or bad news? A wonderful opportunity to connect around the world? Or the first step in creating a generation of addled screen zombies? The truth is, there's no road map for navigating this territory.But while many have been quick to declare this the dawn of a neurological and emotional crisis, solid science on the subject is surprisingly hard to come by. In this book, Anya Kamenetz--an expert on both education and technology, as well as a mother of two young children--takes a refreshingly practical look at the subject. Surveying hundreds of fellow parents on their practices and ideas, and cutting through a thicket of inconclusive studies and overblown claims, she hones a simple message, a riff on Michael Pollan's well-known "food rules": Enjoy Screens. Not too much. Mostly with others.This brief but powerful dictum forms the backbone of a philosophy that will help parents survive the ubiquity of technology in their children's lives, curb their panic, and create room for a happy, healthy family life. Kamenetz's sophisticated yet practical thinking is a necessary cure for an age of anxiety.