Industry News

Book lovers of all ages came out in droves to the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 22. It is the largest free literary event in New York City, and showcased a diverse group of authors and illustrators that live or work in the borough. Gene Luen Yang, Raina Telgemeier, and Jarrett J. Krosoczka were just a few of the acclaimed and bestselling children's books creators that were present.

ALA's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has announced the 10 recipients of its 2013 Teen Read Week Grants. Funded by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, the grants of $1,000 each will be used by the libraries to fund their Teen Read Week programs.

A group of forward-thinking and trailblazing school librarians will soon be gathering at School Library Journal’s ninth annual Leadership Summit. Taking place in Austin, Texas from September 28-29, the event will showcase the transformative work that educators are doing all over the country through effective collaboration. Check out the full schedule here.

Simon & Schuster has announced the creation of a pilot program that would make available as digital editions a specially selected collection of its most popular and award-winning PreK–12 books for school classrooms nationwide. Each ebook purchased may be used in the classroom for one year from the purchase date, and may only be used by one student at a time.

Torrential downpours did not dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm for the over one hundred authors and illustrators who participated in the Library of Congress’s 13th annual National Book Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this weekend. Hundreds of attendees jammed the festival tents to see and hear such favorite authors as Richard Peck, Katherine Paterson, Phyllis Naylor Reynolds, Oliver Jeffers, Veronica Roth, and Jon Klassen.

NY middle school librarian Deven Black has been named the 2013 Bammy Award recipient in the inaugural school librarian category, presented by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences International. Sylvia Knight Norton, incoming executive director of AASL, presented the award on Saturday, September 21, 2013. Jennifer Lagarde, Shannon Miller, Joyce Valenza, and Matthew Winner joined Black as nominees for the award.

Friends and family gathered in New York City on Saturday, September 21, to pay tribute to storyteller, folklorist, and picture book author Diane Wolkstein, who died on January 31, 2013. During the memorial, Wolkstein was honored for her contributions to the world of storytelling through her performances and numerous books, audiobooks, and DVDs of tales she collected from around the world.

The Randolph County (NC) Board of Education is reconsidering its recent ban of Ralph Ellison’s classic novel Invisible Man in its school libraries, the local Courier-Tribune reports. The board voted 5-2 last week to remove the book from shelves, but it has agreed to hold a special meeting on Wednesday to reconsider the book's status.

Scholastic has announced that it is donating one million books to Reach Out and Read, the nonprofit organization that helps implement early-childhood literacy awareness during a child’s regular medical office visits. The donation comes just a day after Reach Out and Read was recognized by the Library of Congress as the recipient of the new David M. Rubenstein Prize for advancing literacy.