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Most of these are board books, so you can read and reread with less fear of your little one ripping the book to shreds. (My kids did manage to destroy a couple, but they’re easily replaced.) Christmas books for toddlers THE NUTCRACKER by Patrick Regan, illustrated by Natasha Kuricheva For me, this is THE classic Christmas story. YMMV. These beautiful illustrations would have drawn me in as a child, and I love that the text is straightforward, yet detailed enough to hold an older child’s attention....

I fell in love with it almost instantaneously—from the themes of seeking freedom from black oppression in America, and his poetry’s roots in African American history, to the jazzy rhythm that his poetry is best known for. He was a prolific writer of poetry, so it can be difficult to know exactly where to get started. Here’s where I recommend starting with Langston Hughes poems. The Weary Blues Langston Hughes and music go hand-in-hand, so it’s really best to listen to his poetry rather than simply read it....

Black Boy Out of Time: A Memoir by Hari Ziyad The Natural Mother of the Child by Krys Malcolm Belc Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness and Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun Harrison With Teeth by Kristen Arnett Milk Fed by Melissa Broder One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters Stone Fruit by Lee Lai Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon Patience & Esther by SW Searle For more information, check out the ALA’s Over the Rainbow website....

To bring together this list of underrated romance novels that you probably haven’t heard of, I set myself some guidelines. The books of course had to focus on romance as the main plot and have a happily ever after (or at least a happy for now) ending. They also had to have fewer than 1000 ratings on Goodreads. In fact, many of the books on this list have fewer than 500 ratings on the site....

After watching Bridgerton in its entirety in one fell swoop on Christmas Day, I sat on my thoughts for a long, long time. I took in some of the discourse, both before and after watching, and thought long and hard about what I could say as a Black person, a Black woman, after watching something that should have been soapy escapism at its very best, but ended up wildly yo-yoing with my emotions, thoughts, and even certainties....

The gap in time between reading sessions could be as little as a few days to longer periods of time like months or even years. Either way, after finishing one of these books, which I like to call “the books that almost got away,” I felt a sense of accomplishment and gratitude for giving it another chance. If I had permanently cast it aside, I wouldn’t have had that closure....

If I’m honest, I remember little of the past year; trauma has ways of messing with your memory like that. But I did keep a meticulous record of all the books I read to try to mitigate that distress and boredom. There are a spreadsheet and piecharts. I read a lot. Curled up on the floor in the corridor of the psych ward, stretched out in bed on the burns unit with an unreasonable quantity of pillows....

The longlist of 2022 potential Canada Reads picks has gone up on the CBC website. On January 26th, the 5 books chosen as well as the celebrities championing them will be announced. Here is the longlist, including fiction and nonfiction, new releases and backlist titles: The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe Driven by Marcello Di Cintio Washington Black by Esi Edugyan What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad Book of Wings by Tawhida Tanya Evanson Satellite Love by Genki Ferguson Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen Five Little Indians by Michelle Good Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Müller From My Mother’s Back by Njoki Wane We Two Alone by Jack Wang...

Existential crises about the unstoppable march of time aside, I’m actually pretty happy with this casting, because I love Elizabeth and Watson, Silverstone and Feuerstein’s respective characters, and am in general a strong Kristy partisan who wants all plots to revolve around her. While I’m sure you still remember your favorite sitter from your BSC days, your memory might be a bit murkier on the parents. But never fear! I’m here to remind you which BSC parents are great, which are barely on the page, and which are hot garbage....

Among the lost is the Great Library of Alexandria, an ancient collection which dwindled over several centuries through neglect, lack of funding and intellectual purges. Equally, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, which had preserved Greek and Roman knowledge for almost a millennium, was eventually destroyed by knights of the fourth crusade. And at Nalanda University in India, the most famous repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world was sacked by invaders, a huge moment in the decline of Buddishm in India....

The Guggenheim Museum and the Academy of American Poets collaborated to make the new Poet-In-Residence position with funding from Van Cleefs & Arpels. It will be hosted through the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, last one year, and focus on public engagement. Johnson will work with the Guggenheim Education team to create poetry-related programs for intergenerational audiences that will take place throughout 2022. The programs will be centered around the theme of “Temple of Spirit” and incorporate the museum’s architecture and history....

My mom, not having any of that, ordered every S.E. Hinton book she could find. In my house, I read anything I wanted to. Anything. It’s safe to say I’ve been a bookworm all my life. What’s more bookwormish than breaking the library rules? Than having a book confiscated after getting caught reading in the middle of math class? Than that sweet delight of reading under your covers by flashlight after your parents have declared it’s bedtime?...

Me? I’m just as sensitive. But I hate getting weepy around other people. I prefer to cry in private. In fact, there’s nothing more cathartic to me than wrapping myself in a blanket, popping in a movie my husband has no interest in watching, and having a good, cleansing cry. But recently, I’ve been caught unawares by a string of heartbreaking books. I’ve found myself stuck in waiting rooms or in line at CVS, blindsided by a particularly upsetting scene, eyes tearing up despite myself....

Like many popular genres, westerns first took off in the mid-1800s during the era of penny dreadfuls, which serialized a book over monthly publications. For readers fascinated with the expanding American west, the novels provided tales of adventure in a new setting, as well as a way to conceptualize a rapidly expanding nation. Many scholars of the genre consider The Virginian by Owen Wister to be the first “official” western novel....

YALSA also has an annotated version of the list available for download, making it easy for school and public librarians to pass this information along to their teen readers to help them connect with a book they’ll love. Find the full list of 25 nominees at the YALSA website. 10 Truths and a Dare by Ashley Elston Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Herman All These Bodies by Kendare Blake Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Here’s to Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera The Ivies by Alexa Donne Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books....

The hardcover book contained a few episodes of the series, and I read it over and over during my childhood. It was the only comic book I owned growing up. Then, for years and years, I didn’t read comics. I only picked them up again when I was about 20, with Calvin and Hobbes and Baby Blues. As I grew up, there was this idea that “books with drawings” weren’t real literature, that if you didn’t read a full-length all-letters novel, you were being a lazy reader; at school, the encouragement was always to pick up the books with words and no images....

LH: I’d have to say Chuck Palahniuk – his events are always a hoot. I’ve been to a couple, and not only was he incredibly funny and smart, but he had inflatable toys that he threw into the audience – the first person to fully inflate their toy got a prize. He also had a Jack Daniels bottle filled with iced tea that he used as a prop at one of his readings....

Okay, so technically, I live in a suburb of D.C. but I work in the city. Regardless, being a resident in the general area grants me reciprocal access to nine additional library systems nearby. Even if they aren’t convenient for me to drive to, I can still take advantage of their digital collections. Once in a while, it’s nice to take those drives anyway, giving me an opportunity to explore what’s known as “DMV,” meaning District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia metro area or just beyond....

The more dated-looking covers (hello there, Red Gate Farm) are by illustrator Bill Gaines. But most of those gorgeous Nancy Drew book covers are by Rudy Nappi. With generous assistance from his wife Peggy, who read and summarized the books for him, Nappi created the memorable artwork seen on both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew book covers. But which of these covers are the best? Since I recently went back and reread all 56 original Nancy Drew adventures, I think that makes me qualified to judge....

If you’re anything like me — or are very interested in being introduced to pirates at this point in life — then I have eight recommendations for books about teens, pirates, and all the magic the ocean conceals. Interested in checking out even more YA books about pirates? Take a quiz to find out which YA pirate book you should read next! Want to dive into books about teens surrounded by magic?...