“Parents take heart: Just because your recent college grad refuses to dive into the work force doesn't mean she's on the path to Loserville. Take Colleen Kinder. She majored in English at Yale, studied in the Dominican Republic for a semester, volunteered at a local nursing home, and interned with a successful book-publishing company. But as her May 2003 graduation drew closer, the last thing Kinder wanted was a job....”

-Washington City Paper   

“This is the time of year when new college graduates prepare to start the next chapter. It’s time for resumes and interviews and deciding what to be for the rest of your life. Or, if you follow the advice and example of Colleen Kinder, it’s a time for deciding how to escape.

Ms. Kinder is the author of what is becoming a must-read on college campuses. Unlike the ever-growing number of books no how to find a job, hers…is about how not to find one. You have plenty of time for all that, she said. First, take time to do what you want, not what’s expected….”

       -The New York Times

“There are many first person accounts and tips from satisfied adventurers…as well as lists of the valuable resources—such as websites, books, and organizations—that will help you fund your travels, plan itineraries, and track down the adventure that best fits your personality. Readers should be forewarned: you will probably catch the adventure bug if you partake in Delaying the Real World.”

                                 -ArtVoice

“The good life isn't just about how much money you have, of course; it's how you spend it. Colleen Kinder…just published Delaying the Real World, a guide for twentysomethings on how to postpone the grind in favor of exotic or enriching experiences.” - The Village Voice

“[Kinder]…argues that adventures away from the routine and safety of campus motivate young people to discover who they are and what they want to do and be.”

The Seattle Times

“She is spot-on in her observation that a "year off" should in fact be considered "year on," in which the post-graduate learns what truly makes him or her tick—a process that can only lead to a more personally fulfilling career and life.”

YES Magazine   

“...Just the book for the anti-job mind. Delaying the Real World, is Colleen Kinder's answer to every college student who doesn't want to jump right into a desk job after four years of academia.”

Flyer News

“Colleen's book isn't about how to buy a Eurail pass and have a great summer vacation. It's about how to put off the pressures of post-graduate adult life and continue your education beyond the classroom. That means traveling the world, working abroad, volunteering for causes you care about, and not caring about people busy counting their 401(k) contributions back home.

Colleen makes it clear that if you plan it right, the education provided by a year spent squishing grapes barefoot on a farm in Denmark can be more illuminating than four years of papers and finals, and far more rewarding than life as a corporate drone.”    

                                                                                -Sparknotes

“Delaying the Real World is part inspiration, part road map, weaving personal journeys with the practicalities of post-graduation.”                                              South Bend Tribune

“There is a lot going on in Confessions of a High School Word Nerd. Inside, ten recent university graduates come clean about an unforgettable high school experience by using their humor and a wide range of SAT words. One author remembers the planning that went into going after her first kiss. One eighth grade story goes back to band camp; at Camp Bernie, water balloons were used to conquer the chosen opponents each year.

Three of the many SAT words included in that story include valorous, invective, and fatuous, with their corresponding definitions listed at the bottom of the page. The editors of this book contributed their stories, too, which involve escapades with cars. Colleen Kinder writes about her experience breaking in the family car, nicknamed “The Whale.” One scheme involved strapping her friend to the roof of The Whale like a deer - all in the name of a school assignment, of course.

Of all the stories in this book, Arianne Cohen’s car story would have been the most embarrassing to live through. She writes an entertaining story about the night she was bored at fourteen and decided to “play with the car.” However, the car belonged to a new family she was temporarily staying with while she was attending school.

Besides editing Confessions of a High School Word Nerd and being 2003 university graduates, Arianne Cohen and Colleen Kinder have both written books of their own: Help, It’s Broken!: The Fix-It Bible for the Repair-Impaired by Cohen, and Delaying the Real World: A Twentysomething’s Guide to Seeking Adventure by Kinder.

The voices of the stories in this book come from a wide range of high schools. There is an all-male high school where student focus turns to pranks way before April 1. Lauren Keane’s story pits city teenager girls against private school teenage girls in a soccer game filled with SAT words and hi-jinx. Homeschooler graduate Timothy Michael Cooper never attended a high school himself, but he found the humor in his preparations to get into college and shared those memories for this book. Each of the ten authors has found a way to ease over one hundred common SAT words into their personal reminisces of high school. The editors have also compiled a glossary of SAT words in the back of the book, and at the end of each story, there’s a small informational paragraph about the author.

With this book, it’s as if you’re listening to a friend recall a funny story - and studying at the same time.”

Curled Up With a Good Kid’s Book: A Reading Resource for Kids, Teachers, Librarians, & Parents

From The Kenyon Review blog, Sam Simpson

“I’ve been thinking about skin again. Last week, I gave blood for the first time. I discovered that what we do to our skin–say, tatooing our favorite lines of poetry on our forearms–affects what we can do with the blood coursing beneath that skin.

Then I began reading Richard Rodriguez’s Brown: The Last Discovery of America. Rodriguez’s meditations on his brown skin and his family’s brown skin have intrigued me since I read Hunger of Memory for the first time as a teenager. No scene is quite as arresting as the moment in that text when a young Richard attempts to shave away the brown of his skin. As a child, I wished for white skin or, at the very least, light brown skin. I could not read brown skin–especially my own–as Rodriguez does in the preface of Brown: “reunion of peoples, an end to ancient wanderings.” Back then, I thought that light skin would make me pretty and invincible.

And then I happened upon Colleen Kinder’s essay, “One Bright Case of Idiopathic Cranofacial Erythema,” and made yet another discovery: even white skin can be complicated.

Skin is supposed to offer a layer of protection. I didn’t believe a friend who told me that our skin is waterproof. “My skin gets wet,” I said. But it doesn’t absorb water the way hair does; it transforms water into beads that slide away. Further, my brown skin protects me from the sun. The make-up artist at a salon marveled at what my skin will look like years from now. “You’re blessed,” she said.

Yet skin puts our vulnerabilities on display. I tend to think of skin in terms of politics and history. This is the skin that kept my grandmother out of that school; maybe this is the skin that got me into this school. This is the skin that sets me apart in a room full of colleagues. This is the skin that clerks watch carefully.

Kinder writes of the tiny, reflexive betrayal of blushing–the way her pale skin reveals even the smallest moments of crisis. I used to pretend I could not blush; in fact, many people assume it’s impossible. However, the moment I step in front of a group of students on the first day, the flush begins. It’s not the Foosh! Kinder describes; it’s a slow warming.

A blush begs for a reading and interpretation from others. Kinder’s essay reminds me of how difficult it is to manage and negotiate a cool, calm exterior when our largest organ reveals the truth of the matter.

And so I have to revise my childhood wish, to reconsider white skin–the kind of skin that turns “BRI-ght red”–as I’m reconsidering brown skin. It’s enough to make one wonder why our skin can do so much to keep our guts from spilling out, but it does nothing to prevent people from reading the terror, the anxiety, the desire coloring our faces.”