News & Features

Music and sound effects can elevate an audiobook, but an authentic narrator is what makes for a stellar listening experience, librarians and industry experts say. 

Empathetic rapport, masterful pacing, pitch-perfect accents—it's all in a day's work for the top-notch talents behind audiobooks including "Horrible Harry," The Hate U Give, No Kimchi for Me!, All American Boys, and others.

Physical books that play narration can increase students' reading confidence. Parents also like the format as an alternative to digital devices.

Join three librarians on August 26 for some show-and-tell as they discuss and demonstrate brain-building read-alouds, tantalizing tech tools, and crowd-pleasing crafts and activities. 

This month's starred titles include a first day of school story by June Sobel, biographies on Mae Jemison and Roberto Clemente, and a new picture book from Kyle Lukoff.

Nonfiction books account for many of this month's stars, along with several middle grade and YA novels, and one holiday book.

Inclusion and play seem to be the watchwords for this roundup. These books include children using cochlear implants, eye shields, prosthetics, wheelchairs, and other helpful tools and devices, but the text never points them out or even mentions them. Welcome to the world of children at play.

In districts like Cypress Fairbanks ISD in Texas, students are returning to schools this fall without full-time certified school librarians.

Biographies for the picture-book set are in abundance, so we pulled out recent titles that got our reviewers' attentions and became stars in the first months of 2024. Use the link for the full review!