AMichael Cunningham, an eight-year-old living in comfortable, concrete, suburban California, was forced to make art before he understood what it was, or could do: for example, a painting of souls ascending to heaven, in which heaven looked like the Griffith Park Observatory and all the dead were depicted in profile because his creator did not
wWhen Laverne Cox was eight years old and growing up in Mobile, Alabama, she saved her pocket money and bought herself a fan decorated with Japanese geishas. The fan became her favorite game, a prop used while dancing in imaginary music videos or recreating scenes from Gone with the Wind in which she presented herself
EEvery aspect of a family’s life will seem normal to its young children; Only with hindsight can what was unusual come into relief. Zaid Ayers Dohrn’s early years were spent on the run from the FBI; His parents were members of the revolutionary Weather Underground faction, a group dedicated to overthrowing the American government. By