Reviews+

Author M.T. Anderson spoke about hope and much more as he accepted the 2019 Edwards Award, which recognizes an author as well as specific titles that have stood the test of time and made a “significant and lasting” contribution to young adult literature. ​​​"This is what I have wanted to say to my readers all along​," he told the audience at a ceremony held at ALA's annual conference.

Reviews of the books featured at this year's SLJTeen Live! virtual conference on August 8.

When the Ground Is Hard is the tale of an unlikely friendship that blossoms between the societal slabs of systemic racism, colorism, and classism in an Apartheid-era Christian boarding school in Swaziland. Award-winning crime fiction writer Malla Nunn talked with SLJ about the personal experiences that shaped this tightly woven, thoughtful, and timely YA adventure story.

Award-winning writer, hip-hop professor, and author of The Roots of Rap, Carole Boston Weatherford talks to Tiffany D. Jackson about Jackson’s new book Let Me Hear a Rhyme, a love letter to 1990s Brooklyn and the hip-hop generation.

A tribute to M.T. Anderson, who received the 2019 Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors a “significant and lasting” contribution to young adult literature.

Hafsah Faizal and Nafiza Azad are debut Muslim fantasy authors, and both of their #OwnVoices YA novels are out this week. Here, they talk to each other about world-building, intersectional feminism, subverting stereotypes, and more.

Many authors' jobs in school, public, and academic libraries have informed their writing for teens.

In We Rule the Night, debut YA author Claire Eliza Bartlett has written a thrilling, magic-infused feminist adventure inspired by the female Soviet military aviators from World War II. Bartlett discusses gender double standards, dieselpunk, and the authors who’ve inspired her.

Five picture books by Yuyi Morales and more titles named as the 2019 Global Read Aloud choices.