News & Features

Check out this week's News Bites for information on a business-related competition for students and teachers, minigrants offered to teachers and librarians by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, and the latest publishing news.

Check out this week's News Bites for the latest information on library grants, writing contest for young adults, and more.

My father is a Marine, so by the time I was eight I was quite adept at packing up my things. I vividly remember when we moved to Beaufort, SC. It was 1996, and it was the first time I ever took advantage of a move. Instead of trashing my old clothes and childish toys, I fixed up parts of my personality that needed improvement and tried out some new traits. I asked people to call me “Al”, giving the role of tomboy a spin. I also spoke up a little more and put myself in more social situations. I used this experience to invent a whole new me.

Beautiful Creatures is a story of star-crossed lovers with a supernatural edge and atmospheric Southern setting. The film adaptation of the first novel in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s fan-favorite series (2009, Little, Brown) is fittingly scheduled for release on Valentine’s Day, 2013. Tempt teens who just can’t get enough of these Beautiful Creatures to keep reading by booktalking or displaying a selection of page-turning tales forged with mystical wonder and touched by true love. Encompassing copious coming-of-age themes and a variety of writing styles, these titles also make excellent choices for book discussion groups.

The number of kids reading ebooks has nearly doubled since 2010, according to Scholastic’s Kids & Family Reading Report, which was released today. The national survey of kids age 6–17 and their parents also found that half of kids age 9–17 say they would read more books for fun if they had greater access to ebooks—although 80 percent of kids who read ebooks say they still read books for fun primarily in print.

Titanic: Voices From The Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson. Scholastic 2012. Review copy from publisher. Finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award. It’s About: The sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic on April 15, 1912, resulting in the loss of over 1,400 men, women and children. The Good: I believe the first Titanic movie I [...]