The author of one of my son’s favorite books, Dozi the Alligator Finds a Family, lives right here in Northern Virginia. My son has excellent taste, too; the book is a gorgeously illustrated story with charming rhyme and humor. The whole premise is funny — the book stars a young alligator who secretly hitches a ride in a kid’s stroller at…

This has been a week of reflection as we celebrate the life of Bob Simon and the founding of Reston. Much has been said about Simon’s community vision where people work together, live together and inspire one another. Reston is one of the nation’s most successful planned communities because of these concepts, but what does that look like…

An art professor taught me years ago that we should look at art without reading labels. Don’t let captions tell you how to respond to artwork, he said. I see the merit of that viewpoint, but personally I prefer to hear what an artist has to say about his or her inspiration. To me, artists’…