News & Features

Author Evan Roskos digs deep into real-life adolescent issues in Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets , including high school expulsion, self-abuse, stalking, and cliques. SLJTeen talked to Roskos about his emotionally moving and ultimately redemptive debut YA novel.

“Wimpy Kid” author/illustrator Jeff Kinney and “Fancy Nancy” illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser scored the top prizes last night at the sixth annual Children’s & Teen Choice Book Awards (CCBAs) gala, a charity event organized by the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader. The honorees were selected by young readers across the country, who cast ballots at bookstores, school libraries, and on bookweekonline.com for their favorite books, author, and illustrator. The gala heralds the official start of the yearly Children’s Book Week celebration. The CCBAs is the only national book awards program in which the winning titles are chosen by kids and teens.

The Innovations in Reading program recognizes institutions and individuals who strive to nurture and promote love of books and reading. Sponsored by the National Book Foundation, prize winners are awarded up to $2500 each to help fund their initiatives and serve even more readers. This year's winners span the globe, delivering truly unique programs to readers of all ages.

Educators "must be fearless in advocating for our students' needs," says Carolyn Foote. In this debut of her SLJ column, "Project Advocacy," Foote provides school librarians and media specialists with a "seed kit" of inspiration for stepping out and building a professional network and leveraging the autonomy of your library program.

Graham Winton’s narration brings to life Gary Schmidt’s beautiful fantasy, What Came form the Stars, about healing and forgiveness. Check out the starred review of this must-have audiobook for middle school students.

My readalong of The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier continues. Chapters One to Ten. Chapter Eleven I have to say, the screw stunt is pretty funny. Even though part of me is saying, someone could have gotten hurt. And part of me is saying it was just a little too much, too extreme. And while [...]

Junior Library Guild editors present a selection of some of the latest chapter books that can encourage beginning readers to take steps toward reading longer texts. From new titles by favorite authors like Kevin Henkes to the next installment of the popular "Bink & Gollie" series, these picks will delight youngsters not quite ready for full-length novels.

Hidy-ho, faithful readers. A blogger might field any number of requests to host contests for new books on their blogs.  And generally speaking, you could be forgiven for almost always politely declining. “No”, you might say, “I just don’t run that sort of blog”.  It is the rare book that snaps me out of such [...]

The long-awaited sequel to Dave Roman's Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity has finally been released! And because there should always be prizes, Dave has created oodles of ways to win stuff. Get your hands on the new title, and blog about it, create fan art, or write a review, and you can win a chance to interview Dave, get a gigantic digital comics collection or original artwork. There's even a special prize just for librarians and educators—one classroom or library will win a free comics workshop (held over Skype) by Jerzy Drozd, creator of Comics Are Great!