The world's largest reviewer of books, multimedia, and technology for children and teens
The cliché about Comic-Con International is that it isn’t about comics any more, but that’s not really true. While the cameras focused on people waiting in line to see the cast of Doctor Who or paying $75 to be chased through an obstacle course by zombies from The Walking Dead, the media largely overlooked a bustling comics and graphic novel scene. About 130,000 people came to this year’s event, held July 11–15 at the San Diego Convention Center.
As summer wanes, we librarians are organizing our calendars for the coming school year. Consider hosting one or more of the following events to get kids, parents and staff charged up and keeping them close to the library!
This time around, our featured music reviews are bicoastal—The Gaslight Anthem hails from New Jersey, and has just released its first album with a major label, while California-based Linkin Park can claim Living Things as their fifth studio album. And after reading the game reviews, I was envisioning a mash-up of The Amazing Spider-Man and Just Dance Greatest Hits—players would swing from building to building, incorporating dance moves!
Activist groups are turning up the heat on HarperCollins—but the publisher isn’t bowing to pressure to sever ties with the anti-gay fast food chain Chick-fil-A.
Representatives from CREDO Action, SumofUs.org, and Faithful America on Tuesday delivered petitions signed by more than 80,000 people urging HarperCollins to pull several Berenstain Bears titles being distributed through a kids’ meal promotion that started this month.
It Came from a Book!, a Teen Read Week art contest, is being launched by The Library as Incubator Project in partnership with Teen Librarian’s Toolbox, The Real Fauxtographer, and EgmontUSA. Teens are encouraged to read any book and create an original piece of art in any medium—painting, drawing, photo, sculpture, manga, etc.—inspired by the story. Then, they must take a digital photo of the artwork and submit the photo (or file if it is digital) to trwartcontest2012@gmail.com by September 30.
Libraries should consider beefing up their gaming collections as a way to keep kids and teens coming, says a new study examining patron use and preferences.
We are so pleased to unveil SLJ’s new website. The look is all different, but you’ll still get the same great content–and it will be easier to find and comment on.
Among the big changes: major menus to help you readily discover areas of coverage, better integration of SLJ Blog Network content, and tech stories folded into the overall content flow.
It doesn’t matter to students whether superheroes are real or fictional. It’s all the same battle as long as they fight injustice. These four books bring the struggle against prejudice and inequality blazingly alive.
Rick Bowers’s Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan: The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate (National Geographic, 2012) offers a fresh angle in the fight for freedom. After World War II, the Last Son of Krypton quickly took [...]
Fourteen years ago, I waited in line at a public library circulation desk with my three-year-old niece, Sara, who was clutching a well-worn copy of In the Night Kitchen. When her turn came, she handed the book to the clerk, and anxiously held her breath as it was checked back in.
In this Article
On the Web
“All the world’s a stage,” proclaims Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Judging by the numerous sources available for would-be thespians, he knows of what he speaks! With the popularity of Glee and the many versions of High School Musical, it seems clear that, no matter the odds, there will always be a modern-day Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland hustling to put on a show.
What makes the world of [...]
Photo by Eye of Science/Science Photo Library; 3D4Medical/Science Photo Library.
Reviews in this column first appeared in SLJ ’s Touch and Go . After each review, you’ll find the date it appeared online. Online, there are links to related resources, a trailer (if one exists), and a “purchase” button. Please note that later versions of some of these titles may now be available. Visit Touch and Go at slj.com for additional reviews, [...]
App-ening
Best apps: The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Best Apps for Curriculum Task Force is accepting nominations for the best curriculum-based apps. From the ones nominated, the task force will compile a list of the top 25. “Apps and tablet technology add a tremendous value to educators and students, but today there are thousands of apps available with the list growing daily,” said Melissa Jacobs-Israel, task force chair. “Which apps are paramount? AASL’s newly created Best Apps for Curriculum [...]
Be in It to Win It
Sweepstakes and digital download: Barnes & Noble announced that Alloy Entertainment, the producer of Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries, is making two digital titles for teens available on the Nook. The End of the World As We Know It by Iva-Marie Palmer is about a group of misfit teens facing an alien invasion. Elena Perez’s The Art of Disappearing is about a girl who learns that she might be psychic. The titles can be [...]
Richard Hasenyager, the former director for library services at Texas’sNorth East Independent School District, was recently appointed director of library services for New York City’s department of education.
He replaces Barbara Stripling, who left the position at the end of 2011 to become a professor of practice at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies (iSchool). Stripling held the position since 2005.
Awards
Show a little love: Nominations are open for the 2012 Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award. Library users can nominate a favorite public, school, college, community college, or university librarian based on the accomplishments in improving the lives of people in their community. Nominees must be employed librarians with a master’s degree from a program accredited by the American Library Association (ALA) in library and information studies or a master’s degree with a specialty [...]
Photo by theDQT
Advocate
Call your legislator: The American Library Association (ALA) has just made it much easier for you to respond to email alerts relating to legislative activity affecting libraries. It takes just a few minutes. Text “library” to 877877 and you’ll get a message asking for your address. Enter your address, and you’re signed up. When there’s a legislative alert from ALA about library and information issues, the organization will send you a text that contains “talking points” and a [...]
In this Article
Fiction Series Update
ANDERSON, Jodi Lynn. Tiger Lily. 292p. HarperCollins/HarperTeen. July 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-06-200325-6; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-06-211461-7.
Gr 8-11–Tiger Lily is the adopted daughter of Tik Tok, shaman of the Sky Eater tribe of Neverland. As such, she should be a revered member of her community. Instead she is teased and harassed by other children–until one of her tormentors mysteriously dies. After that Tiger Lily is still an outsider, still looked down on, but she is [...]
Fiction
D’AGOSTINO, Kris. The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac. 336p. Algonquin. 2012. pap. $13.95. ISBN 978-1-56512-951-1. LC 2011038421.
Adult/High School–It’s 2006, and 24-year-old underachiever Calvin Moretti is up to his eyeballs in student-loan debt. His film degree hasn’t helped him to land a lucrative dream job, so he’s back under his parents’ roof. And despite the fact that he counts the minutes to the end of his workday as an assistant teacher at a special-needs preschool, his misguided (but hot) supervisor thinks [...]
It was 2001 and I was a year out of college, my dream of becoming a photographer neatly scrapped due to the slightly sobering fact that my photography skills, not to put too fine a point on it, stunk.
Granted
Library grants: Applications are being accepted through July 15 for grants to develop public programming around the free traveling panel exhibition, “Civil War 150.” The $1000 grants, offered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, in partnership with The Library of America, will be awarded to 50 sites to host the exhibition and plan accompanying public programming. The winners will also be given written materials, such as discussion guides, and access to a multimedia website that contains digital resources. [...]
