Kids had taken over the kitchen to cook dinner for themselves. There were nine children total, four rooms in the house, just one bathroom — and no video games.

Once upon a time, planning travel meant booking overnight trains from Venice to Paris. My husband and I tramped through cathedrals. We hiked to desolate beaches. And if we got tired, we'd just hole up in a fancy hotel and run up a room-service tab. It was a grown-up world. It was good. And it never strayed from its first commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Bored.

Reading, writing, and...texting. Some English teachers say they're seeing symbols and abbreviations show-up in their students' essays.

After President Barack Obama was elected, his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, said that she loved her family, but she loved her home in Chicago too.

KEWADIN, Mich. — On a warm summer morning thick with dew, the counselor stood before 50 sleepy kids in T-shirts and sweatpants at the flagpole — the meeting place before all meals — and bellowed, "Good morning, Camp Maplehurst!"