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Each month until the 2021 ALA Youth Media Awards on Monday, January 25, our Pondering Printz column will feature expert predictions and analysis of this year's Michael L. Printz Award by former committee members. This month our columnist asks, how can this year’s Printz Award contenders help us process our world?

Picture books are a powerful medium for helping children make sense of the world around them. Yet, when it comes to making sense of early math concepts, many picture books prioritize math over story, and few feature main characters of color.

Keynote addresses by James McBride, Tommy Orange, and Ijeoma Oluo, and sessions on reimagining school, next steps in antiracist teaching, and challenging the classics are just a few of the highlights of the 2020 SLJ Summit.

As they look forward to publishing their first YA titles, these authors discuss writing about pain and joy, the long process of publishing, and advice for activists and college-bound teens.

As libraries reopen and return to being the heart of schools and their communities, these stories and lessons will serve as anchors for young readers who are hungry to understand and cope with their new world through the familiar and comforting format of books.

These titles for middle and high school readers celebrate joy in the lives of Black teens and tweens. The characters in these stories laugh honestly, love fiercely, and exist wholly.

SLJ spoke with the Roll With It author about being a theater kid, the healing power of the arts, and thoughtfully writing a character with Sensory Processing Disorder in her latest novel, Tune It Out.

How Karen Jensen and Kathryn King designed a DEI course for staff at the Fort Worth (TX) Public Library.

Add all of these essential and exceptional titles reviewed in our September 2020 issue, including new works by Cynthia Kadohata, Andrea Davis Pinkney, and Sy Montgomery.