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Book Love by Penny Kittle To me, this book is essential for all English teachers. Kittle uses scientific research to back up her arguments that students should be reading in class and they should have the choice to read what they want. Many people argue that giving kids the choice to read American Born Chinese or The Hate U Give instead of more “rigorous” and “literary” texts is doing them a disservice and not teaching them to read more difficult “classics....

But I always adored reading, and I loved fiction best of all. While I thoroughly enjoy a wider range of genres now, my first true love was, and still is, realistic fiction. I become completely invested in the characters, and I truly care what happens to them. I long to be immersed in their world. It is through reading fiction and being exposed to more and more stories that I found myself learning all kinds of history that I’d never picked up in school....

Chicago Public Libraries (CPL) declared themselves book sanctuaries in late September during Banned Books Week. Along with the declaration, they set up a website that invites other institutions — and individuals! — to join the movement and declare themselves book sanctuaries, too. The goal is for all 81 of their branch libraries to have heavily-banned books available and to create programming around banned books throughout the year. While the messaging around their specific branding of a book sanctuary overlooks the vital language that this isn’t about books but about the rights of people to read and exist (and, to be fair, it is implicit), this is one way to push back against book banners....

It’s been a hard few years for teachers and librarians already. Schools shut down, pivoted to remote learning, pivoted back to in-person, pivoted back to remote, and teachers had to adapt on the fly. They put their health on the line when going into schools packed with kids and equipped with inadequate PPE. They taught kids who struggling with the social and emotional ramifications of a disrupted education as well as trying to catch up with projected learning outcomes....

She left all she knew to find who she could be… She grows up in the wild wood, in a cave with her mother, but when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she decides her future lies at his court. Brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she sets out for Caer Leon. With a stolen hunting spear and mended armour, she begins a journey of magic, mystery, love, lust and fights to the death....

Check out the quiz below to discover which LGBTQ YA ship best matches your personality. Maybe your results will reaffirm a longtime OTP, or perhaps you’ll find a new series with the perfect love story for you! Once you’ve discovered which ship might just be your OTP, check out the rest of the ships featured in the quiz for more excellent queer fantasy romances: Jesper Fahey and Wylan Van Eck (Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo) Ash and Kaisa (Ash by Malinda Lo) Simon Snow and Baz Grimm-Pitch (Carry On by Rainbow Rowell) Denna and Mare (Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst) Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood (The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare) Nova Huang and Tam Lang (Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu) Sam and Miel (When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore) Lord Ballister Blackheart and Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin (Nimona by Noelle Stevenson)

The series began in 2016 and the third book just published in 2021, ending the first arc of La Borinqueña’s story. On top of creating a kick-ass superhero, Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez has created a whole philanthropic arm to give funds to Puerto Rican nonprofits, which as someone who works in fundraising, I find to be quite remarkable. I was fortunate enough to get to talk to Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, creator and graphic novelist, about his incredible superhero....

Virginia Woolf famously said: “If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” (No, this quote is not in the quiz, sorry!) I think both Woolf and Apple take this sentiment to heart in their writing. Not only do they write about other people with a sharp, clear, unsentimental but not ungenerous eye, they also write about themselves—or women like them—in the same way....

One section that stands out for book lovers and people in the publishing industry is the Books section. The New York Times Best Seller list, in particular, is a big deal. While there have been controversies surrounding the list, especially concerning how the bestsellers are picked, its influence is undeniable. So what’s the history of The New York Times Best Sellers list? How are books selected for it? What makes it different from other lists?...

How It Came To Be When I was doing a quick scroll through my Twitter feed on a cold rainy day in June, I came across a blogger’s post saying that they have already read 85 books this year. I gasped because that’s an impressive feat, given that most bookworms can’t even hit 50. This sparked a bit of curiosity in me. I kept wondering, how do some people read that many books?...

What Is “Commenting”? Before we discuss why we shouldn’t do a thing, it’s prudent to define the thing. When I talk about “commenting” on checkouts, I mean making any sort of statement — or even asking a question — unprompted by the customer. This could sound as innocent as something like, “I love this book!” It could be more nefarious, like, “This book is for babies. Aren’t you a little old for it?...

For years, I had scant memories of the nightmarish story featured in one particular Reading Rainbow episode. A farmer, working his field. An enormous volcano, out of absolutely nowhere. Utter destruction. Those details were all it took to push my little unconscious brain to the brink. Look, I was a fearful kid. An incomplete list of things I was afraid of: ants, dogs, fire, fireworks, killer bees, cobwebs, alien abduction, the tiny people I thought lived in the desk in my bedroom, my grandparents’ unnervingly blue upstairs bathroom, and quicksand (a common fear among us ‘80s kids)....

Many Game of Thrones fans were baffled by the last-minute decision to name Bran king of the Six Kingdoms and give him the title Bran the Broken. In particular, many disabled fans were justifiably furious at Bran’s title. To anyone who thinks, “It’s just a TV show!”: representation matters. Especially with a cultural juggernaut like Game of Thrones, the depiction of marginalized people can impact our treatment in the real world....

Sign up for the FSG Work in Progress newsletter from Macmillan to receive the front line news in literary fiction, poetry, along with interviews with authors from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. By signing up, you also agree to receive occasional emails from Macmillan and its related companies concerning books and materials that might interest you. This sweepstakes is open to residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and all other US territories)....

Best Novel went to Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender, a rich Caribbean-inspired fantasy about the twisting, violent politics in a chain of colonized islands permeated with magic abilities. Callender’s fantasy won among a superb shortlist of nominees that included The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, and The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder....

In any event we thought it would be fun to play around with this idea with recent book reviews. How INTO this book are the reviewers, exactly? Let’s find out. Janet Maslin’s NY Times review of Killing Kennedy by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard “The authors are not content to say that Jan. 20, 1961, is a cold day. They must point out that “a brutal wind strafes the crowd....

In literature, there are books, many of them children’s or YA books, that imagine the world from the viewpoint of an animal. Many classic children’s books feature animals, like the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel or any books by Richard Scarry. But there are adult books written from the perspectives of animals, too, which thrills me. And they are not just books from the viewpoints of cats and dogs — though I’m absolutely down with those books — there are books from diverse animals from polar bears to bees....

It is difficult to overestimate The Sandman‘s influence on modern graphic novels. Between the storyline’s meandering-yet-interconnected style and the iconic art, Dream’s journey has lent ideas to many a graphic novel author, as well as novelists, and will — after 21 years of trying — debut on the small screen with Netflix’s The Sandman series on August 5, 2022. You could, of course, prepare for the 10-episode season 1 by reading (or re-reading) the series itself....

It’s 19th century New England, and strange things are happening at the new Trilling Heart School. Recently founded by famed transcendentalist Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, the school has only just opened its doors when a flock of mysterious red birds descend on campus, and, eerier still, the students begin to fall ill with strange symptoms. When the faculty turns to a sinister physician for treatment, Caroline begins to question her place at the school – and in the world at large....

As the book came to an end, and I considered what I had read, the strange but enthralling life Howard must have lived and her love for birds and independence, other books with birds I had come across on my reading journey came to mind. The books below aren’t all about birds; although in some of these stories, birds – real, or ethereal – do play a role, some I chose for the birds on the cover, others for the birds on the title....