Kathy Ishizuka

Awards season is heating up, along with reader interest in current speculation. Betsy Bird puts it out there in her latest Prediction Edition. Also trending on SLJ, booklists that honor the Latinx experience to savor with young readers in this commemorative month and beyond.

If our goal is to prep students for high-stakes tests, they won't stand a chance against AI. Changing the outcomes of education becomes the imperative, says Christopher Dede. 

Booktalks are brief, in this case uber-brief, pitches to “sell” young readers on a given title. We invite readers to give it a shot, submit a stellar video booktalk for potential publication on SLJ.com and our social channels.

Moms for Liberty has waged war on public education and democratic values, leveraging fear and disinformation. There are steps to take, including exercising your own First Amendment rights to uphold a just and equitable society.

It’s all 227 books we’ve starred thus far in 2023, collected in a special section out this month and available to subscribers.

This month, I’m sharing some personal research combining two great passions: gardening and ­libraries. The culmination of my Master Gardener training, my capstone project explores how public libraries make ideal partners in promoting gardening and sustainable, organic practices.

Did booksellers throw librarians under the bus regarding censorship? Imagining there was more to the story out of ABA's Winter Institute, SLJ editor in chief Kathy Ishizuka explores common ground between bookstores and libraries and finds that when book people work together, good things can happen.

It’s some visual. The literal erasure of the word “racism” and by extension the lived experience of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry and their descendants. Among them: Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author of Love in the Library—who received those amendments to her picture book by a Scholastic editor—and myself.

The CAA Foundation and the Campaign for Our Shared Future are harnessing star power to fight censorship. Launching today, #LetAmericaRead invites supporters to join the campaign to oppose book banning, which is occurring in public schools and libraries nationwide.