Naperville Diary

Bookwallah, a Naperville-area children's book nonprofit, held a fundraiser on May 25, 2012 at the White Eagle Clubhouse to build orphanage libraries.

A no-touch energy therapy from Choa Kok Sui working with prana and chakras; crystal healing adds gemstones. Not medical advice.

Volume 8: spring calls for restraint — vivid-green palak paneer, cold cucumber-mint raita, simple basmati, and thin roomali roti.

A rainy-spring Friday menu: lamb keema with browned onions and peas, hand chapati, a carrot raita — and a glass of something cold.

A grade-5 story by Shlok Sharma of Naperville: Joe's mom is disappointed in his writing scores and buys him a diary. What happens when he starts his journal?

Friday menu, vol. 6: bright tomato-coriander chicken curry, charred spring asparagus, and golden turmeric rice — ease that looks like effort.

Naperville parents Paul and Amy Miller, who lost 18-year-old daughter Megan to heroin, began educating other families about the drug's reach into suburbia.

This week's Friday table took us to Le Siam in Naperville for Tom Kha soup, crazy noodles, and Massaman curry — plus a home-style Tom Kha recipe to try

Holi, the festival of colors, falls on March 8 this year (Holika Dahan on March 7). A practical guide to the bonfire, the color play, and the food.

The Friday cooking column continues with Mrinalini Sen's Easy Breezy Bhindi, a Bengali Sorshe-Posto style okra preparation with mustard-poppy paste.

This Friday: slow-simmered black lentil dal with a buttery tadka, roasted cauliflower with a spiced yogurt marinade, and a fresh kachumber on the side.

Arup Raha monthly Bollywood column: previews, reviews and unsolicited views on upcoming releases — February 2012 edition.

Shaun Wild, 24, a Spring Brook Elementary second-grade teacher, was fatally stabbed at Frankie's Blue Room in Naperville on Feb 4, 2012, breaking up a fight.

Maitreyee Das launches her Friday food column — a Bengali fish lover's quest for an easy recipe inspired by a restaurant spinach-and-cod dish.

The winter of 2011–12 barely showed up across the Northern Hemisphere: Chicagoans wore light jackets in January as NOAA confirmed the fourth-warmest winter.

A Naperville family of four — Iqbal Habib, Zeenat, and their children Fareeza and Ashaz — lost their lives in a road accident in India while on vacation.

A look at Mama Poppins, the drop-in childcare service at Fox Valley Mall — and what mall-based babysitting says about how suburban families live now.

By the early 2010s, business leaders and educators agreed the US was falling dangerously behind in STEM — an explainer on the state of science education.

A Thanksgiving reflection on a child's gratitude list by Shlok Sharma — family, friends, school, and the specific things that make the days good.

Retro Reel Volume 4: the golden-age Hollywood musical — the genre that made joy look effortless and was secretly the hardest thing MGM ever did.