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Into the Spider-Verse is the first cinematic release with Miles Morales, a teenage Spider-Man who black and Hispanic. Miles tries his best to navigate a prep school in Brooklyn, while feeling out of place and wanting to go back to his old school and graffiti murals with his uncle. Life changes when a spider bites him one night, and Spider-Man dies saving him on the next night. On the surface, the film appears to be a cartoon redemption movie for Sony, after they released the Emoji Movie....

In the New York Times article ‘Just How White is the Book Industry?’, Richard Jean So and Gus Wezerek explore the revelations of the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag, started by YA author L.L. McKinney, where authors of colour and white authors compared the amounts they had been paid for advances. It revealed that BIPOC authors were often paid drastically less for the same kinds of work. So and Wezerek dug deeper into the imbalance in the publishing industry, noting that only 11% of books published in 2018 were written by authors of colour, and speculating that this may be linked to the lack of diversity in publishing itself: ‘The heads of the “big five” publishing houses (soon, perhaps, to become the “big four”) are white....

I watched the two hour premiere of The Librarians (which is just two shows back to back – TV, you are not fooling anyone with this gimmick) and I laughed, I giggled, I swooned over the awesome dream library Carter calls home….wait, let me back up. The basic premise is this: in this world, magic has gone awry sometime around the time of King Arthur, Camelot, and Excalibur. There are still streams of magic racing around, but it’s underground, and on the DL, and that’s why we can’t see that it exists....

From 1840 until 1880, the Concord writers included Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter), Henry David Thoreau (Walden and Civil Disobedience) and the essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (Emerson: Essays and Lectures). Today, Concord remains a stately and beautiful town that still has the white spires of the church towers rising above Concord’s ancient elms, maple, and oak trees. The commuter rail makes Concord more of a commuter town than a literary hub of genius—but the names of Thoreau, Emerson, and Alcott still dominate....

Once upon a time, the prince and princess would get married and live happily ever after. The end. But the endings aren’t so simple. Marriage is complex. It is not the end but yet another beginning. One that leads to a life of beauty and interdependence but also vulnerability and disappointments. I have a confession to make: I get scared when a couple gets married either in the beginning or the middle of the book....

I Love Lucy was the first DVD series I ever owned, after owning a few of the compilations on VHS. Imagine my thrill in discovering the show was on Hulu—I’m well aware I’m a bit behind the 8-ball here. I immediately set to watch my favorite episodes (“Vitameatavegamin” and “Job Switching” in one quick go). It made me want to return to reading about Lucy, about Ricky, and about the real stories behind the stories they shared on television....

That’s a significant year for Mahfouzophiles. In 1994, the great Egyptian innovator was stabbed in the neck. Afterward, he had trouble holding a pen and couldn’t write for more than a few minutes at a time. As Shoair and Mahfouz’s daughter, Um Kulthum, looked through the file of 50, they found most had been published. But eighteen of the stories had not. These will be published in Beirut on December 11, Mahfouz’s birthday, under the title The Whisper of Stars....

Have you heard of book advent calendars? I hadn’t. They were one of the few things that I learned about in real life before I saw them on the internet. Last November, customers started coming into the bookstore that I work for and gathering up kids’ Christmas books in order to make their own book advent calendars. I love this idea–and not just because I sell kids’ books. I love the personal touch it gives over a chocolate advent calendar....

For more Mary Oliver, check out Map Of Mary Oliver: A Reading Pathway. Through poetry, Oliver shared her sense of wonder (“When it’s over, I want to say /all my life I was a bride married to amazement”) often with a first person perspective and lean prose. Her poetry also contains direct life advice (“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.”). While Oliver wrote extensively about the beauty of the world, she also wrote of it’s darkness....

Book Quotes That Match Gryffindor House As said in the Harry Potter novels, “Where dwell the brave at heart, their daring, nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.” Gryffindors tend to be outspoken, courageous, and are always game to go on an adventure and try something new. They never want to live life on the sidelines and would much rather take a risk to do what’s right in the end. “Life is too short to be unhappy, to play it safe....

Aries (March 21–April 19) You’re feeling a bit sluggish this month, Aries. You hate being held back, and it’s been a while since you could go full speed ahead. Plan something special to mix things up, like a romantic surprise for a significant other, or a virtual event with friends. Having a goal will make things feel more normal for you, and connecting with others goes a long way for lifting spirits....

This time though I’m taking a look at the plots that are not murder focused. It doesn’t mean that there can’t be murder or that there isn’t any murder in the book, but the plot isn’t centered around solving a person’s murder. Sometimes there is a puzzle to solve, or an item to find, or even a person selling state secrets to identify and catch. While this list is again not exhaustive, there are plenty of sub-genres here and interesting plots to take a look at that will keep you cozy in your sleuthing reading nook for a bit....

Turns out this concept isn’t hypothetical. There is in fact a bookstore that only sells one book. It’s called Morioka Shoten, and it’s located in Ginza, Tokyo. Okay, to be fair, it’s not that Morioka Shoten only sells one single book. Rather, the bookstore sells multiple copies of one book. The book being sold changes weekly, and the store also puts together displays and exhibits that connect to the book of the week....

Dr. Katelyn N. Allers, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Bucknell University, reported that Tyson felt her up without her consent at an after-party for a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 2009. She did not report the incident at the time, but Dr. Michele Thornley, another Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Bucknell, stated that Dr. Allers told her about the incident in 2013 when Tyson returned to speak at the University....

A non-binding resolution has been introduced in New Jersey’s state Assembly asking for the removal of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from school curricula. Controversy over this book isn’t new; this has been going on for years, even decades. Between 2000-2009, it was the 14th most challenged or banned book in the US. Though academics say it has anti-slavery themes, Twain used the n-word more than 200 times in the book....

In addition to rolling out the official list, ALA also launched a new landing page called Unite Against Book Bans. This “national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship” offers some of the statistics collected by the organization’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. But what’s missing on this new website is any call to action. There are no steps or tools anyone can take to combat censorship in their own community....

Kindred was first published in 1979 and later adapted into a graphic novel in 2017. It follows Dana, a Black woman living in California in 1976. After celebrating her 26th birthday, she gets pulled back in time to antebellum Maryland. As soon as she saves a drowning white boy, a shotgun is pointed at her, but her life is saved by being transported back to the present day. She gets sent back in time repeatedly throughout the book, with each stay in the past getting longer and more dangerous....

We are kicking off the month with an embarrassment of riches on the first Tuesday, including new books by Malinda Lo and Adam Silvera (both are companions to some of their best loved books!). And the bookish goodness carries through the rest of the month, so you can expect a new YA novel from Alice Oseman, and brand-new fantasy from Joan He, some great debuts, and if fall isn’t your vibe, then that’s okay, too — this month also has a great new Christmas rom-com and a Hanukkah rom-com as well!...

During the pandemic, many book clubs have had to stop meeting in person. However, like plenty of other groups of people who gathered to discuss a common interest, they took to Zoom and other meeting platforms to stay connected. This had consequences, naturally. Sometimes bad, sometimes lovely. One of the latter is that more people could join. In a way, virtual book clubs ensured that more connections could be made....

I evaluate, purchase and curate our digital content for all ages. But unlike a traditional public library that offers multiple locations to display physical books, our ebooks and audiobooks must be carefully curated on digital bookshelves. Every month our digital bookshelves change so that our patrons get a different look at our collection. Since they are unable to walk through stacks and go from physical bookshelf to bookshelf, this is our best chance to highlight books that are overlooked or are older....