My 13-year-old grandson cannot read cursive. I didn't know this until about a month ago. I was showing him something in my journal, and he couldn't make out a word. "They don't teach cursive anymore," he informed me.

I was flabbergasted…

They aren't wrapped yet. They're lying side-by-side on the dining room table in no particular order, stiff-spined, some with glossy covers, some matte, some thick with pages, some slim, some traditional paperbacks, some the mass-market kind, all of them with that new book smell.

For weeks I'd been thinking about what to get my grandson, Adam, for his 13th birthday. Anything sports…