News & Features

The September Multimedia Review section features nearly70 reviews of DVDs, audiobooks, and children’s music CDs. Among the eight starred reviews are Constitution USA with Peter Sagal, a DVD that examines the document’s historical and contemporary contexts, and Nelson Mandela, Kadir Nelson’s evocative biography for elementary grade students.

Constitution USA with Peter Sagal broadly examines our Constitution in both historical and contemporary contexts in a manner that will transfix viewers. Check out the starred review.

Joy Fleishhacker, our media maniac, looks ahead to the October release of the motion picture Parkland, based on the 2007 book Four Days in November which examines the goings-on at Parkland Hospital following the shooting of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. She's put together a selection of nonfiction and fiction titles which will can help middle grade and teen readers get the facts surrounding the event as well as the feelings of those young people who experienced it.

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang. First Second. 2013. Review copy from publisher. Boxers & Saints, Volume 1. The Plot: In 1894, Little Bao is the youngest brother of three in Northern Shan-tung Province, China. He likes watching the traveling operas that visit the village in springtime; his older brothers tease him; he admires his father. [...]

Gina Damico wraps up her Croak series in "cracktastic" style with the fall release of ​Rogue. If you loved ​Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, it's a good bet you'll be smitten with ​Fangirl, "written by a writer writing about a writer writing." The question posed in ​After Eden​, from Helen Douglas, circles around when it is or isn't right to keep a secret, especially when a loyal friend and a whole planet depend on it.

Poetry and nature feature strongly in our selections this month, perhaps because we've been spending more time outdoors of late?

While Labor Day is often seen as the unofficial end of summer around the country, in Michigan this holds especially true – the first day of public school is typically the following Tuesday. And this is going to be one heck of a year. My job has changed. In the past, I’ve split time between [...]

Do you know of an an outstanding educator whom you'd like to send to the head of the class? The International Reading Association (IRA) is now accepting applications for both its Arbuthnot and Jerry Johns Award.

Teens at the Ypsilanti (MI) District Library's Michigan Avenue Branch and the Jasper County (MO) Juvenile Detention Center will soon reap the benefits of YALSA's Books for Teens grant awards, thanks to local dedicated young adult and teen librarians.