Ralph talks to literacy expert, Nancy Newman about how to raise passionate readers; and law professor, Alexandra Lahav tells us how a "litigious society" is actually vital to a functioning democracy.
Nancy Newman is a teacher, a literacy consultant, and an author. After a career teaching remedial English in elementary school, high school and community college, she began offering workshops on the simple steps both parents and teachers can take to strengthen a child’s language skills and reinforce their enjoyment of books and learning. Ms. Newman’s upbeat presentations have inspired and empowered thousands of parents, teachers, learning specialists, librarians, and school administrators in a wide variety of settings. Her latest book is entitled, Raising Passionate Readers.
Alexandra Lahav is professor of law at the University of Connecticut, who teaches classes in civil procedure, complex litigation and tort reform. Her book defending the role of litigation in American democracy is called In Praise of Litigation.
“In the recent scandal involving GM, there’s a story I tell in the book about a young woman who was killed because of the failure of those GM cars. And her parents went to a very well regarded lawyer in her state, and the lawyer turned down her case. And he said, ‘Look, you have a good case in terms of there’s something wrong with this car.’ At the time, they didn’t know what it was. ‘And your child died.’ She was a young woman in her twenties. ‘But her life just isn’t worth enough to bring a lawsuit. We don’t think this lawsuit’s worth more than $350,000. And that’s what it would cost to bring it.’ And that was because in that state they had eliminated punitive damages. And there were a bunch of other limitations on damages that made the case just not that valuable.”
Alexandra Lahav, author of In Praise of Litigation
Reading and Suing