News & Features

The University of London’s Institute of Education (IOE) has released a study showing that children who read for pleasure are likely to do significantly better at school than their peers. The study, which is one of the first to examine the effect of reading for pleasure on children's cognitive development over time, finds that children who read for pleasure made more progress in learning math, vocabulary, and spelling between the ages of 10 and 16 than those who rarely read.

Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged 12 school employees, including two librarians, with stealing at least thousands of textbooks from their school districts—four of the nation’s poorest—for a book buyer, who allegedly paid them $200,000 in bribes, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

Though R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike may be our quickest associations with teen screams, horror encompasses a wide array of books. Teen librarian and blogger Kelly Jensen highlights the latest titles in teen fiction that are bound to give readers nightmares.

New York City children's librarian Susan Scatena of Queens Library at Whitestone this week has fulfilled the promise she made to her young patrons at the start of the summer by reading a story aloud to a live alligator. The unusual storytime fulfilled Scatena’s half of the pact she made with the children that at least 300 of them would register in her summer reading program and read at least 4,000 books. In fact, they exceeded their goal; 344 children registered and read 4,595 books.

Find magic and adventures in this week’s new releases! IDW continues its My Little Pony Micro-series, this time featuring the ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia. Papercutz releases the 12th volume in their Disney Fairies series, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, and Seven Seas releases the final volume of Young Miss Holmes, a wonderful series [...]

Beloved children’s book author Kevin Henkes has nearly 50 titles to his name, ranging from picture books to novels for young readers. On the heels of his turn as opening keynote speaker at our annual Day of Dialog (DoD), Henkes is joining SLJ again, this time for an exclusive live webcast. As we look forward to hearing him speak and answer questions from kids, parents, and teachers, we sat down with Henkes for an in-depth chat about his career so far, his creative process, and his next projects.

From social media to publishing industry-led initiatives, the call for diversity in children’s and young adult literature has steadily grown into a loud roar in the past months. As part of School Library Journal’s SummerTeen virtual conference, the “Embracing Diversity” panel featuring Karen Arthurton, Jonathan Friesen, James Klise, and Amanda Sun, led to a lively and ongoing conversation about the importance of not only publishing books for kids by and about diverse people, but also getting them in the hands of readers. SLJ spoke to industry professionals who are raising awareness on the need for different perspectives in young adult books, and compiled a list of resources to find these titles.

Former teacher librarian and current district administrator Mark Ray continues to reflect on the ways teacher librarians can better connect and work with building and district leaders.

Imagine a school library bigger than the school it supports—with an auditorium, homework center, and a 6,000-square-foot teen room where hundreds of iPads and computers are at students’ disposal. That’s the reality for 9th and 10th graders at San Diego’s new e3 Civic High School, a public charter school literally inside the recently completed 400,000-square foot, $185-million Central Library.