This year’s theme was “You’re Reading WHAT?!?!” Students age 19 or under were asked to create a short video about a time when an adult tried to censor something they were reading, or about a book-banning incident in the news that involved young people. There are 12 videos among the semifinalists, and voting is easy. The video with the most “likes” will be declared the People’s Choice winner. The deadline for casting votes is February 15 at 5 p.m. EST. The People’s Choice Award-winner will receive a Certificate of Free Expression Excellence from the NCAC.

While the public is choosing their favorite, a stellar panel of judges will be hard at work choosing the grand prize, second place, and third place winners. This year’s judges include Kirby Dick, a documentary director and Academy Award-nominee (The Invisible War), National Book Award-winner and frequently challenged author Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown, 2007)), Cecily von Ziegesar (author of the oft-banned “Gossip Girls” series (Little, Brown)), Onion AV Club National Associate Editor and pop culture maven Tasha Robinson, Kristen Fitzpatrick of Women Make Movies, and 2011 YFEP Film Contest winners Jake Gogats and Caitlin Wolper. Winners will receive $1,000, $500. and $250 respectively and a trip to New York City to attend the Youth Voices Uncensored event. All winners will be announced by the end of February, so check NCAC.org for updates. Get voting now!

Books for GLBTQ Youth

A Rainbow: Forty-nine books from 31 publishers have been selected by the Rainbow Project for their 2013 Rainbow Book List, a project of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) and the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) of the American Library Association. To make the final selection, the committee evaluated over 150 books for youth, from birth to age 18, published between July 2011 and December 2012. The titles run the gamut from science fiction to fiction to graphic novels, among other genres. The committee notes that there is a dearth of nonfiction titles for any age being published, “including memoirs and history so vital to tying a culture together.” The complete list can be accessed at the GLBTRT website.

The following are the top ten titles: Starting from Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (Amazon, 2012), Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills (Flux, 2012), The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth (HarperCollins, 2012), Ask the Passengers by A. S. King (Little, Brown, 2012), Adaptation by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown, 2012), The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Ecco, 2012), The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves edited by Sarah Moon (Scholastic, 2012), Chulito: A Novel by Charles Rice-Gonzalez (Magnus Bks., 2011), Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saénz (S & S, 2012), and Drama by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic, 2012).

Publishing News: New Imprints

Algonquin Young Readers is a new imprint being created by Algonquin Books for readers ages 7 to 17. The books will run the gamut from short illustrated novels for beginning readers to topical young adult novels. The first list will launch in Fall 2013 with five novels. There will be three title for middle grades—The Time Fetch by Amy Herick, Three Ring Rascals, Book 1: The Show Must Go On by Kate and M. Sarah Klise, and Anton Cecil: Cats at Sea by Lisa and Valerie Martin. If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan and Hollis Seamon’s Somebody Up There Hates You are the two young adult titles. The imprint plans to grow to the point where it will publish 15 titles each year and include some nonfiction books with their primarily fiction list, according to Elise Howard, editor and publisher of Algonquin Books for Young Readers.

Amazon Children’s Publishing is launching two new imprints—Two Lions and Skyscape—in Spring 2013. Picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade fiction will be published under the Two Lions banner, with Margery Cuyler as editorial manager, while Skyscape will focus on young adult titles under the leadership of Tim Ditlow.  According to Amazon, Two Lions—one representing the past and the other the future—“is committed to forming strong, creative relationships with authors and illustrators to bring originality of design and literary quality to readers.” Skyscape plans to bring “a wide range of stories with unique voices, compelling narratives, and intriguing perspectives to readers.” Two Lions’s inaugural titles Ininclude Gandhi: A March to the Sea by Alice B. McGinty, Poco Loco by J. R. Kraus, and Slugger by Susan Pearson. The titles for teens are Me & My Invisible Guy by Sarah Jeffrey, Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan, and You Know What You Have to Do by Bonnie Shimko, among others.

Ebook Lending

A new model: Ingram Content Group has added a new content access model to its MyiLibrary e-content platform. The Access Model, designed to help libraries make their ebook lending more flexible, lets libraries “purchase a set of access credits for an ebook and lend it simultaneously to multiple patrons for a set cost and lending period.” This multi-user platform assures library patrons that they will have access to popular titles. “Patron usage of ebooks continues to climb,” noted Dan Sheehan, vice president and general manager, Ingram Content Group Library Services, “and the addition of our new multi-user concurrent Access Model gives libraries the flexibility to meet the content requirements of their patrons and manage budgets effectively.”

The MyiLibrary platform currently offers nearly 40,000 titles from leading publishers and can be accessed 24/7. Random House has just announced that it will be adding more than 36,000 frontlist and backlist titles to MyiLibrary from all Random House Inc. imprints and their publisher-distribution clients, including National Geographic, Smithsonian Books, and Wizards of the Coast, and others.