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Silicon Valley will be quite "useful in a number of classroom settings as well as for individual research or casual viewing, especially by those with a curiosity about how today’s technology revolution actually began." Check out the rest of this starred review.

Michelle Perera, assistant director of the Rancho Cucamonga Library (CA) and 2013 Mover & Shaker, has broken amazing new ground. Her efforts to expand programming, infrastructure, and professional development have garnered grant funding and awards, and her plan to build interactive exhibits for children—now trademarked as the Play and Learn Islands—is being expanded to other libraries. In this interview, Perera shares with us her inspirations and passions, and some of the secrets behind Rancho Cucamonga’s success.

As Chicago prepares to permanently shutter 49 K–12 schools and one 9–11 school program for the coming school year, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is planning to open four new stand-alone school libraries for the 2013–2014 school year—and spend more than $2 million for the facilities.

Capstone Publishing has created different ways that the library community can help the children and school libraries affected by the recent tornado in Moore, OK. The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation’s Minigrant Program has awarded 59 grants to teachers and librarians in 29 states. The World Almanac for Kids Online has been relaunched by Infobase Learning to include a new streamlined interface and new content. Benjamin Alire Sáenz won a Lambda Award for his acclaimed Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe in the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category.

While the future of Barnes & Noble's hardware division is still playing out, the Nook line of ereaders boasts a quality user experience and library-loan friendly features. Jeff Hastings provides a rundown of the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight and the Nook HD tablet in his video review.

After our first/last highly successful poetry slam, demand grew for us to schedule a second event before the school year ended.  And last week we did. Although I worried that final projects, prom, graduation, finals, etc. would get in the way, the kiddos from my dear Literary Mag, Gay Straight Alliance, Book Club and Gallery [...]

Morning, fellow plebes!  And isn’t the weather just fine and dandy these last few days?  It has been in New York anyway.  Which is to say, it feels like we briefly stole San Francisco’s temperatures for our own use this week.  Giving it back is going to be awful.  To take my mind off that, [...]

The Strengthening America’s Schools Act, introduced in the Senate on Tuesday by Tom Harkin (D-IA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Jack Reed (D-RI), includes strong provisions for effective school library programs, and is the first piece of legislation to recognize the role school library programs play in student learning since 1965, according to the American Library Association.

Nearly 200 authors were recognized on May 30, 2013, at the 15th International Latino Book Awards ceremony, which was held at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City during BookExpo America. The largest awards in the US celebrating achievements in Latino literature, the event is presented by Latino Literacy Now in partnership with Las Comadres para las Americas and the Instituto Cervantes. See which titles were honored in the Children, Youth, and Young Adult categories.