The "Wimpy Kid" author headlines SLJ's flagship annual event, featuring sessions on the biggest issues facing school librarianship, from empowerment in the face of book bans, to making the case to stakeholders and engaging the AI revolution.

Angeline Boulley, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Debbie Reese discussed Native work for young readers—and Boulley made a big announcement.

Newbery-winning author Donna Barba Higuera based Petra on someone who also kept her vision loss a secret: her mother. 

 In colorful shirts and with a contagious excitement about the library, the supervising librarian of the Fairfield Civic Center branch of the Solano County (CA) Library system posts about the little library moments that can have a big impact. 

Two principals in a Maine district remove and restrict six books after challenges; a Florida district proactively pulls 31 titles based on complaints in other counties; teens speak out for the right to read in North Carolina and California; and more in the latest Censorship News.

Young won the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 1990 for Lon Po Po, which he also wrote.

Ariana Grande, Guillermo del Toro, Padma Lakshmi, Roxane Gay, Gabrielle Union, Sandra Cisneros, Amanda Gorman, Margaret Cho, and Ron Perlman are among the upwards of 175 public figures who signed an open letter calling on creative communities to leverage their voices to stop book bans. 

In a first for the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Meg Medina establishes office hours at the Library of Congress; AASL opens submissions for Innovative Reading Grant; there are big changes at Teachers College; the Mathical Book Prize submissions are open; and more in this edition of News Bites.

Newbery Honor and Stonewall Award–winning children's author Kyle Lukoff focused only on the creative work at a weeklong youth literature workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.