Mahnaz Dar, Shelley Diaz,

Awards season is well underway in the children’s and YA lit world, and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) made its contribution last week when it revealed the shortlists for its nonfiction and debut YA awards. SLJ has compiled the full reviews and resources for each of the finalists.

On July 24, SLJ's SummerTeen virtual event, attended by nearly 800 conference goers, was chock full of popular and thought-provoking YA authors, such as keynoters Gayle Forman (If I Stay) and Matthew Quick (Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock), who reveal some of the more personal asides, challenges, and stories behind novel writing. It was Quick who said, "Good literature, he said, “[comforts] the disturbed and [disturbs] the comforted."

SLJ attends this year's BookExpo America (May 28-30) at the Javits Convention Center in New York City and took the opportunity to catch up with award-winning authors, like A Plague of Unicorns (Zonderkids, 2014) Jane Yolen, and even famous actors like "How I Met Your Mother's" Jason Segel whose children's book Nightmares!M/em> comes out in September through Delacorte.