News & Features

Happy Columbus Day to you!  I’ve not particularly insightful encapsulations of the day to offer you, though if you’d like to read some preview posts I’ve done on the day (completely with book recommendations) feel free to go here. I will start today with this rather interesting post about a recent brouhaha that arose when [...]

Data from New York City’s Independent Budget Office, requested by the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), exposes huge inequities in the distribution of resources in New York City high schools. According to AQE’s analysis, black and Latino students are being denied opportunities available to many white and Asian students.

SLJTeen reviewers take a look at an interesting mix of books. From a creepy short story collection to a novel told backwards, these titles have something for every reader.

Jillian Cantor has taken Anne Frank’s Diary of A Young Girl and written an alternate fiction in which Margot, Anne’s older sister, did not die in Bergen-Belsen after all. Instead, she survives and makes her way to Philadelphia. But, in a way, she is still in hiding. Margot has changed her name, hidden her Jewish faith, and [...]

Across Texas, the number of certified school librarians has dropped 10 percent since 2009, in part because of limited budgets and the growth of digital books. The decline has been particularly sharp in Houston, where roughly 60 percent of schools do not have certified librarians this year, according to district data.

Congratulations to Alice Munro. What should I read by her? You might guess from that question that I am not the world’s heaviest lifter of “literary fiction,” and am not even sure I know it when I see it. The New York Times recently reported on a study published in Science which purported to suggest [...]

The post Science, My Aunt Fanny appeared first on The Horn Book.

Neil Gaiman's dark urban fantasy novel Neverwhere has been removed from both the school library and the required reading list at Alamogordo (NM) High School this week following the complaint of one parent, who objected to its sexual innuendos and "harsh" language, according to a report by New Mexico's local KRQE news station.

Author Lee Bennett Hopkins has pledged to give the Penn State University Libraries his 18,000-volume book collection and correspondence papers from his lifelong career in children’s literature. The children’s poetry and literature collection, valued at approximately $3.25 million, includes volumes from such authors as Nikki Grimes, Madeline L’Engle, and Maurice Sendak, many of whom have autographed their works.

Sesame Workshop has partnered with the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation to launch a new early literacy initiative, Every Day is a Reading and Writing Day. The program aims to be a free bilingual, digital resource made up of tips, games, and activities designed to improve a child's reading and writing capabilities from an early age.