News & Features

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators has announced its creation of the Spark Award, an annual literary award that will recognize excellence in a children’s book published through a non-traditional publishing route. The award is open to current writer and/or illustrator SCBWI members who have published a board book, picture book, chapter book, middle grade, or young adult novel either independently or via an established self-publishing enterprise.

Read for the Record Day is October 3, and children all over the country will be celebrating by reading Loren Long's Otis, including the students at teacher librarian Shannon McClintock Miller's school. Five lucky classrooms that pledge by September 25 will also get the opportunity to chat with the author in a Google+ Hangout.

Monday was the big day for the National Book Awards in the YA and Children’s worlds, with the announcement of the longlist for the award for Young People’s Literature.  But we here at Adult Books 4 Teens had to wait through the week for the other three longlists to be announced: Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction. [...]

November is Picture Book Month. Five winners and five finalists of the NYC Neighborhood Library Awards were announced September 17. Apply for the Stony Brook Southampton (NY) MFA in Children's Literature Fellows program. Kids in grades 2–5 can enter the LEGO Essay Contest.

Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. She’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. She stumbles upon a warehouse party where, among other things, Elise discovers she has what it takes to be an awesome DJ. Macmillan is giving five lucky winners the chance to get a copy of Leila Sales's latest title, This Song Will Save Your Life.

I’m just catching up with SLJ’s Heavy Metal and our own Calling Caldecott (and I see Betsy Bird has posted her own award predictions, too). All good prep for a terrible prognosticator (who once told the Wall Street Journal that kids were gonna hate Lemony Snicket). I’m particularly enjoying the civilized debate following Martha’s post [...]

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Know a deserving school librarian, media specialist, or teacher-librarian? AASL has many opportunities for recognizing their smarts, bravery, and innovative style through its 2014 Awards program. And the online awards database promises to make the nomination process easier than ever.

Everyone’s seen the NBA long list, yes? Five titles are what I would consider firmly children’s and not within the Printz purview. Of the other five, four were on our own longlist the other day, have garnered several stars, and are the books people* are generally speaking about. (*people in this case=book people with a [...]

The National Book Foundation has announced the 2013 Young People’s Literature Longlist for the National Book Award, the first time in history that a longlist of nominees will be presented for all four categories of awards: young people's literature, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The finalists will be revealed on October 16, with the winners revealed at the awards ceremony on November 20.