Public Libraries

Getting real about the stormy, frustrating, and sometimes sad aspects of friendship can help middle schoolers navigate social interactions, research shows.

Hand these middle grade and YA titles to kids watching the new Netflix series about British teen ghost hunters, adapted from books by Jonathan Stroud.

Hand these books to middle graders in need of some magical tales. 

Hand these books to tweens and teens who love Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. 

Ed tech platform Edmodo will shut down in September, the Center for Antiracist Education will no longer produce new materials; Sora is a Google Classroom add-on, and more in this edition of News Bites.

New policies are impacting school library purchases in Pennsylvania and Florida; one Texas district cancels its Scholastic Book Fairs for the year; and a South Carolina state senator threatens to eliminate the salaries of public library executives in his county in the latest Censorship Roundup.

SLJ and NCTE collaborated to create 18 booklists of titles to replace, or use as a companion to, canon "classics." 

The author of Home Home stresses the importance of openly discussing mental health issues and offering hope to young people experiencing anxiety and depression.

Middle grade and YA authors including  Joy McCullough, Reem Faruqi,  and others discuss the power of verse to address emotional topics and craft innovative narratives.