Ideas

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, and over the last half-decade, YA adaptations have brought even more excitement to her work.

Neal Shusterman received the 2024 Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors an author "for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature." The annual award is administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association and sponsored by School Library Journal. Here is his acceptance address, delivered June 30 at the ALA Annual conference held in San Diego.

The New York Times best-selling author and Caldecott Honor-awarded picture book illustrator talks with School Library Journal about creating the Mo Willems Workshop channel and how librarians can use it with their students.

 They are a community’s soul, “cathedrals to who we should be as a society,” and so much more. 

Co-authors Kekla Magoon & Cynthia Leitich Smith in conversation about the inspiration behind The Blue Stars Series: Mission One: The Vice Principal Problem: "When we set out to write a middle grade graphic novel series about cousins who became superheroes to save their school library, we couldn't have imagined how timely our story would become."

On the occasion of receiving the 2023 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his significant and lasting contribution to writing for teens, Jason Reynolds took the reins on SLJ's Instagram. Here's the full AMA, your feel-good watch of the day.

A.S. King received the 2022 Margaret A. Edwards Award for “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.” Karen Jensen, "Teen Librarian Toolbox" blogger, and her daughter, Riley, spoke to King for our June cover story.

The author of My Ex-Imaginary Friend says that bookending funny chapters with ones including hard conversations "helped to show that even when things are tough, there is hope and humor on the other side."  

The Front Desk author tweeted a call to action to her colleagues, as she tries to "motivate and mobilize" people to fight coordinated efforts to remove books from schools and libraries.