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Commentator Daniel Ferri, who teaches sixth grade in Chicago, brings us a vignette from some of the first steps out from behind the curtain of childhood onto life's grand stage.

Commentator Reynolds Price thinks back to the phrase "this week's play in front of last weeks sets." It's a phrase he remembers from reading Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from Maidstone, England, that a jury found Dutch truck driver Perry Wacker guilty of manslaughter today in the deaths of 58 illegal Chinese migrants. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Wacker transported the Chinese migrants in his truck on a ferry from Belgium to Dover last year.

Today, President Bush expressed his own regrets about Sunday's collision between an American reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter jet. And he shrugged off the budget setback dealt by the Senate yesterday. The budget process is a long and winding road, the president said. NPR's Don Gonyea reports from the White House.

Robert Siegel talks with retired Lt. Gen. William E. Odom about how pilots are trained to behave when they are in the custody of another nation. Odom is former head of the National Security Agency, director of National Security Studies at the Hudson Institute, and adjunct professor of political science at Yale University.

As the U.S. works to figure out how the collision between an American reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter jet took place, talks between the two nations are intensifying. China is still holding the 24 crew of the EP-3, which also remains in China's custody. The U.S. is trying to win their release and the plane's return. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.

As the reconnaissance plane standoff continues, the Chinese government must take into account the opinions of its own people, even though the political voice of the masses is muted. The public mood is one of anger and disappointment at the United States. NPR's Rob Gifford samples opinion outside the U.S. embassy and in McDonalds in Beijing.

NPR's Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr provides some historical perspective on what happens when superpowers come into conflict over intelligence-gathering operations.

Writer and actor Edward Bunker served almost twenty years in prison, starting at age 17. The books Bunker checked out of the prison library at San Quentin changed his life. He reads from his autobiography Education of a Felon: A Memoir, published by St. Martin's Press.

NPR's Margot Adler reports on the changing fortunes of the prison library. Originally, the library was seen as the key to salvation, a place where prisoners could read religious tracts to better themselves. In the 1970s, the library became a legal resource for those serving time behind bars. Now, there are signs that prison libraries may be on the decline, due to court decisions and budget cuts.