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Now in its sixth year, #WiTMonth has blossomed. Dozens of bookshops, libraries, writers, critics, and publishers are taking part. Among other things, this has led to #WiTMonth discounts and giveaways. These are a few. Giveaways Deep Vellum Press promises to gift “Deep Vellum titles to four lucky followers! Simply tag us in a post about which of these titles you’d like to receive. Winner announced August 31.” The titles: Recitation, Blood Sisters, Sphinx, Eve Out of Her Ruins....

That means you won’t find books about figures like Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, or Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. here. (Okay, okay, I couldn’t help myself and included a Harriet Tubman book!) There are so many excellent books out there about the handful of people who have made it into the textbooks that I thought it would probably be more helpful to direct you toward some of the less widely discussed — but no less significant — Black thinkers, artists, activists, leaders, and celebrities who have influenced the course of history....

The American Library Association also recognizes how important illustrators are to children’s books by awarding the Caldecott Medal. Named after 19th century picture book author and illustrator Randolph J. Caldecott, the medal is awarded each year to the “most distinguished illustrator” of a children’s picture book. We know and recognize a lot of the titles that have been listed over the years—they’ve become staples of our childhoods, and will continue to with our children....

While many of these diverse YA horror books have popped up on numerous YA horror books compilations in the past, I thought it worthwhile to break them out and expand upon them. As always: horror is a mood and not a genre. It can be part of any genre, allowing it deep flexibility and definition—some of these books might not seem like what you’d anticipate for horror, but if it’s a book that in some capacity brings about fear, chills, disgust, or anguish to the reader, then it’s horror....

What do you read next if you’re a young reader who isn’t quite ready for snake caverns under the school and dead girls in the bathroom? What book do you press into your adult’s hands if you want more magical stories, but when you lay down with your eyes closed, you’re still kind of freaked out by the reveal of Voldemort at the end of Sorcerer’s Stone? One of my students had this question for me and it’s one that I’ve been wrestling out for my own children....

Classic Mystery Book Series Let’s start with the classic writers, the royalty of the genre, typically in the first part of the 20th century. I have left off Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle since I feel that they are well-known and popular. Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey Sayers should be up there with Agatha Christie. Her characters, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, are well written; the mysteries well conceived....

I still love those books. But I started thinking about how if everyone only read and bought classic picture books, there would be no new classics to add into the rotation moving forward. The lack of diversity in classic picture books also bothered me. I started trying to support currently writing and publishing picture book authors and illustrators. And wow, there are so many beautiful (in every sense of the word) picture books that come out every year....

Memoirs about Illness Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag Sontag writes about how cultural narratives and metaphors involving disease often cast blame on people who are sick. Think, for example, of how often we talk about people who die from cancer having lost a battle. Disease isn’t a punishment or a curse, either, or a sign of some inner purity, as you might think if you read only Victorian novels. As Sontag writes, “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick....

1. Atomic Habits by James Clear No matter what your goals are, learn how to permanently establish new good habits, banish bad ones, and boost willpower. Useful for both individuals and organizations, and also for either work or personal life. 2. Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life by Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar with Michelle D. Seaton If your health, sleep, or stress-levels could use some improvement, Dr. Kshirsagar posits you can make great improvements by paying more attention to your body’s natural chronological rhythms....

But we’re in a different place today than we were in the early 2000s. The market can support those light novel releases. In fact, there’s a hungry audience for them. And because of that, the best light novels are now available for us to read in English. Classic Light Novels Light novels are a relatively young format. The category as we know it today emerged during the 1990s. Even the pulp novels that would later become known as proto light novels — like Vampire Hunter D — were published after 1975....

Well, praise the world, we are not alone. Check out these snort-inducing takes on novelists’ misguided ideas of growing up in various parts of the world. MY ACTUAL CHILDHOOD IN THE SOUTH: got called gay for crying during “Hardball” again today — Wenzler Powers (@WenzlerPowers) January 28, 2020 MY ACTUAL CHILDHOOD IN THE MIDWEST: the hawks left a half-eaten squirrel in the yard but it’s surrounded by insane wild turkeys so I guess it stays — a disgruntled pelican (@adspexi) January 28, 2020...

Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau (February 12, 2019, from First Second) Ari is ready to quit his job at the family bakery and move on with his band to try and make it in the big city. But first he has to help find his replacement. Enter Hector. Hector loves baking as much as Ari loves music and seems like the perfect replacement. Love begins to bloom over kneading bread and it seems like everything might just be perfect after all—that is, if Ari doesn’t ruin everything first....

Of the five categories—adult fiction, adult nonfiction, young adult literature, children’s literature, and picture books—three (YA, children’s and picture books) were announced at the Youth Media Awards, held on the morning of Monday January 27, at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia. Let’s take a look a closer look at the winners, their works, and a handful of same-day Twitter reactions from the winning authors and their publishers. 2020 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature Winners: Picture Books Winner: Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom by Teresa Robeson, illustrated by Rebecca Huang This is the story of Wu Chien Shiung, who was born in China at a time when girls were not expected to go to school and were not considered to be as smart as boys....

Best Crime Thriller Books: Fiction The Missing American by Kwei Quartey After her dreams of becoming a police officer come crashing down, Emma starts working for a private detective agency in Accra. Anxious about her uncertain future and career in the city, she soon finds herself investigating the case of a missing American citizen in Ghana. In a plot that expands continents and the secrets of two countries, Emma must navigate a convoluted world of international scams, fetish priests, and the mysteries of the dead....

The slate of YA adaptations in 2023 is promising for representation, but it should be noted that we’re still no where near representative of either the YA reader world at large nor the category of YA literature itself. We can only hope that the adaptations being slated for future years continue this growth trend and we’re able to enjoy as much inclusivity as possible as films and series from YA books continue to flourish....

Board Books About Colors Red Rojo (Color Series) by Meritxell Martí What are some items that are red? In this simple and beautiful board book, Meritxell Marti introduces children to such red things as stage curtains, ladybugs, and even The Grand Canyon. Both English and Spanish words are given for each item. After exploring this book, check out the rest in the series: Green Verde, Blue Azure, and Yellow Amarillo....

Book Riot is teaming up with Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, to give 10 lucky winners a bundle of all five of their Winter 2021 frontlist titles! at Brightly: 16 Great Chapter Books for Third Graders at Bustle: Scary Books To Cosy Up With For A Halloween In Lockdown at BuzzFeed: 24 Romance Novels That Will Make Your Heart Feel Warmer And Cozier Than A Cable-Knit Sweater at Crime Reads: 17 Crime Fiction Series that Use Real Historical Figures as Sleuths at Electric Lit: 9 Books to Fill the Void of GLOW Season 4 at Epic Reads: 35 Completed Book Series to Marathon Guaranteed to Keep You Reading at Get Literary: Witchy Reads for Hocus Pocus Fans that Will Put a Spell on You at Lit Hub: Americans Abroad in Literature: A Passport to Reading at Mental Floss: 11 of Our Favorite Horror Books at POPSUGAR: 21 Lighthearted, Cozy Mystery Books to Settle Down With This Fall at Riveted Lit: Series to Read if You Love Neal Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe at Shondaland: 5 Spooky Books to Read This October at Tor....

Below is a list of some of the best books to gift in 2019. Bonus tip: for the person who you might think has read everything, try something British. UK books often fly under the radar somewhat over here, even if they’re big across the pond. Gifts For Readers of Fiction Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo All the talk of the controversy about splitting the Booker prize has, frustratingly, obscured the achievement of Bernardine Evaristo’s win....

Past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense. Practice safe text: use commas. Knock knock. Who’s there? To. To who? No, to whom. I avoid cliches like the plague. Seven days without a pun makes one weak. You can’t run through a campground. You can only ran, because it’s past tents. What’s the difference between cats and a comma? Cats have claws at the end of their paws and commas are a pause at the end of a clause....

Note: while many of these are capital-R romances that fit the genre’s conventions, many are better described as love stories, where romance is a heavy part of the story but doesn’t necessarily wrap up with a HEA or a happy for now. Which of the Best Kindle Unlimited Romance Books in 2021 Are You Looking Forward To? These are just a few of the best Kindle Unlimited romance books in 2021....