SLJ illustration. Source: Getty Images

THE STORY

A plan by Barnes & Noble to put people of color on the covers of classic novels causes outrage.

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 Sharon Lynn Lanasa Who thought this was a good idea????

Zacc Abbott “Imagine a black girl, a Latina, who picks up a copy of The Secret Garden and sees this beautiful black girl on the cover and gets the book and is all excited about it and reads it and realizes it was a book about a white girl who has a racist family and racist beliefs herself...” Imagine the horror, reading about somebody with different skin colour than you. Unimaginable horror.

Cady Fontana From my understanding: the issue isn’t that a black or brown child might read the books about white children—of course that’s fine. The issue is with making false promises, setting said child up to believe they are reading about a person of color, and then not addressing the elephant of racism, white privilege, and historical elevation of white people as the only people worth writing about.

THE STORY

A graphic novel Newbery win is meaningful in many ways.

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Laura Wicke As a newbie librarian, I am so excited about this. I have always been a reader and loved the classic, traditional style. My students have pushed me toward opening my mind to graphic novels. I have seen how much the students love them, they feel connected to some of these books. Not just because of the format, but also the stories they tell.

Robert Johnson Congratulations, people need to see us as fully developed human beings. I live in a majority-Black middle class neighborhood in the community of Inglewood. Very rarely do you see stories written about this Black experience. Congratulations, and thank you. Looking forward to the next book.

THE STORY

The leveling debate rages on as Lexile practices continue in most schools despite objection.

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Amanda Borgia Diary of a Wimpy Kid has a higher Lexile Level than books geared towards adults. It’s all vocabulary. The sentence “Susie was forlorn when Timmy stole her green crayon.” will have a higher level than “Susie was sad after Timmy broke up with her after having sex.”

Lara Allyson Watkins Just let kids READ!!! Barnes and Noble doesn’t prevent adults from buying the wrong level book why should we prevent kids from reading what they want!?