News & Features

New York’s Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature has named Michelle Knudsen’s Big Mean Mike the winner of its Irma Black Award for the best read-aloud picture book for first and second grade and Andrea Menotti’s How Many Jelly Beans? the winner of its Cook Prize for the best picture book that teaches science, technology, engineering, and math principles.

American College of Education is hosting a free massive online open course (MOOC) on digital tools for the K–12 classroom from May 6 to June 9, 2013 for educators and other professionals who want to integrate web-based tools like Animoto, Glogster, Prezi in the classroom. YALSA announced the 2013 Teens’ Top Ten nominees, and American Booksellers Association has selected the 2013 Indies Choice and E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winners.

Winners and honorees of the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Award were celebrated at a ceremony earlier this month; Hervé Tullet signs books at a reception for his newest picture book I Am Blop!

The Hans Christian Andersen Award shortlist has been revealed; the Christopher Awards names six winners in the Books for Young People category; and Shmoop, a publisher of digital curriculum and test prep, is offering a new SAT math practice tool—Math Shack. All of this and more in this week's News Bites column.

This year’s nominees for the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a varied lineup. Last year’s judges (ahem) increased the number of young reader categories from two to three, and this year’s judges have continued that practice, which opens up the nominations to a wider range of books. Best Publication [...]

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has announced that the recipient of its 2013 Distinguished Service Award is Dr. Keith Curry Lance, a Ph.D. sociologist who works with school and public libraries and related library organizations.

Collaboration among teachers and media specialists is critical to promote learning, increase student achievement, and help students develop 21st century skills. Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and Library Media Connection magazine are calling for media specialists and educators at K-12 public and private schools in the U.S. and Canada to share their collaboration success stories by submitting for the 2013 TEAMS Award (Teachers and Media Specialists Influencing Student Achievement).

Fred Smith, a junior at Vidor (TX) High School, needed to find something written by an author after 1960 for the Oral Interpretation portion of a prose and poetry competition. He found Francesco Marciuliano's I Could Pee on This, and Other Poems by Cats (Chronicle Books, August 2012) fit the bill. Smith's drama teacher, Adam Conrad, reports that his student recently placed first at the District 20 AAAA level Oral Interpretation contest and has advanced to the Regional level that will be held April 20, 2013 at Sam Houston State University, as part of the Texas UIL (University Interscholastic League) Prose and Poetry Competition.

SLJ is giving away 25 author-signed copies of the latest book in the format-bending “Infinity Ring” series (Scholastic). Written by Matt de la Peña, the middle grade novel Curse of the Ancients continues the adventures of Dak, Sera, and Riq, who are on a quest to set history back on course by traveling to different cataclysmic events in time. Leave comment to enter.