Back to School

These series about friend duos will appeal to young children just starting to read independently—and watching the streaming show on Apple TV.  

For teens eagerly awaiting their escape to college or those reading "up" about older students, here are 12 YA novels set on colleges campuses.

Booktalks are brief, in this case uber-brief, pitches to “sell” young readers on a given title. We invite readers to give it a shot, submit a stellar video booktalk for potential publication on SLJ.com and our social channels.

The most viewed stories: recommended titles for the return to the classroom, fiction and nonfiction, and ways to make books available in a time of rampant censorship. Meanwhile, M.T. Anderson calls us to what counts: love. 

The Digital Public Library of America has launched The Banned Book Club, offering free access to e-books and audiobooks in areas where the titles have been restricted or banned.

Music mogul Jay-Z is working with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to combat book bans; Ta-Nehisi Coates attended a school board meeting to support a teacher told to stop using his book; President Obama joins public library Tik Toks to spread the message about the importance of access to books; and more.

EveryLibrary and GLAAD teamed up to offer practical advice for fighting censorship in your community; the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) announces its 2023 Best Book Awards; and publishing news from Baker & Taylor and Nosy Crow in this edition of News Bites.

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we offer this list of nonfiction and fiction titles to commemorate the lives of the thousands of people of Japanese descent who were impacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, which forcibly relocated them into concentration camps.

In this year’s round of “Refreshing the Canon," we would love to hear which titles you would KEEP on your summer reading lists—classics that you as librarians and educators believe should still be taught in schools.