News & Features

New York’s Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature has named Michelle Knudsen’s Big Mean Mike the winner of its Irma Black Award for the best read-aloud picture book for first and second grade and Andrea Menotti’s How Many Jelly Beans? the winner of its Cook Prize for the best picture book that teaches science, technology, engineering, and math principles.

In our next installment celebrating National Poetry Month, acclaimed and versatile author Marilyn Singer highlights five of her top poetry anthologies for kids.

American College of Education is hosting a free massive online open course (MOOC) on digital tools for the K–12 classroom from May 6 to June 9, 2013 for educators and other professionals who want to integrate web-based tools like Animoto, Glogster, Prezi in the classroom. YALSA announced the 2013 Teens’ Top Ten nominees, and American Booksellers Association has selected the 2013 Indies Choice and E. B. White Read-Aloud Award winners.

Following Stiff, Spook, Bonk and Packing for Mars, Mary Roach is back with Gulp, in which she maintains her punning, entertaining writing style, as well as her willingness to go to the gross-out extreme. There were actually moments in this book that made me nauseous, and there is one chapter in particular that I believe [...]

Last time we discussed the many charms of Faith Erin Hicks’s Friends with Boys, recognized this year as one of the Great Graphic Novels for Teens Top Ten for 2013.  Readers who relish Hicks’s story of family, hauntings, and navigating a new school should turn to these recommendations for their next title. Anya’s Ghost by [...]

Well, it happened again – a student discovered my world-record-holding look-alike in one of our library books. This time it was in the pages of Scholastic Book of Records 2011. A 3rd grader came up to me today and showed me this: Hicham El Guerrouj This has happened before. Turns out that Mr. Guerrouj holds the [...]

What better way to engage and inspire a group of fashion-conscious kids than by creating a design competition modeled after the hit reality show Project Runway? Thanks to the efforts of children’s librarian Frances Grossman-Goldberg—and a little help from The Weinstein Company, Mood Fabrics, and L’oreal.Paris—a group of teens and tweens at the Pomonok branch of the Queens Borough Public Library (NY) had the experiences of a lifetime this past winter.

Pat Scales, chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, answers readers’ questions about censorship. This month, Scales addresses what to do when your school has inflexible or strict Internet filters, including strategies for aiding students in completing research assignments and advice on instituting new policies for challenged materials.