We Need Diverse Books will celebrate the first We Need Diverse Books Day on April 3; senators call on acting director of IMLS to continue funding programs as directed by Congress; Suzanne Collins talks philosophy and Sunrise on the Reaping; Eric Carle Honors honorees announced; and more.

We Need Diverse Books Day is April 3

We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) is launching the inaugural We Need Diverse Books Day on Thursday, April 3. The day is intended "to highlight the importance of reading books that reflect the beautifully diverse world," the organization announced. WNDB will be recommending titles for all ages, sharing resources on where to find them, and encouraging everyone to read a diverse book.

“We invite you to pick out and read a diverse book today—because diverse books are for everyone and these stories ought to be shared and celebrated,” WNDB board chair and bestselling author Dhonielle Clayton said in a statement.

The press release noted the impact of diverse books and the bans on them.

"Diverse books have the unique power to improve literacy and build empathy, but many of these titles have been disproportionately affected by the recent surge in book bans to silence diverse voices. In this historical moment, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed 11 book ban complaints and six pending ones, under the headline 'U.S. Department of Education Ends Biden’s Book Ban Hoax.'

"Book bans are all too real. Over the last four years, thousands of books have been targeted for censorship, fueled by far-right organizations under the guise of ‘parental rights.’ Approximately four million children across the country have been affected by book bans, and challenges are ballooning in states like Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Books discussing race and racism, and LGBTQ+ and transgender identities are being targeted at consistently high rates, according to PEN America."

In addition to the We Need Diverse Books Day celebration, to mark 10 years of the nonprofit, WNDB will donate 10,000 titles in 2025 to schools and libraries across the country.

Senators call on IMLS acting director to continue allocated funding

U.S. Senator Jack Reed and the co-authors of the last reauthorization of the Museum and Library Services Act sent a letter to the acting director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) seeking assurances that allocated federal funding for IMLS will be implemented in a manner consistent with appropriations laws.

Reed was joined by fellow senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, in writing to IMLS Acting Director Keith Sonderling urging him to "continue IMLS’s mission to engage with and support libraries and museums, as Congress intended when it created the agency."

The letter was a response to the March 14, 2025 executive order issued by President Trump that seeks to eliminate the IMLS to the greatest extent possible under the law along with several other federal agencies and services.

"As the lead authors of the Museum and Library Services Act (MLSA) of 2018 (PL 115-40), which was signed into law by Trump, we write to remind the Administration of its obligation to faithfully execute the provisions of the law as authorized," the letter said. "The MLSA established the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and tasked the Director with the 'primary responsibility for the development and implementation of policy to ensure the availability of museum, library, and information services adequate to meet the essential information, education, research, economic, cultural, and civic needs of the people of the United States.' It requires that the Institute has an Office of Museum Services and an Office of Library Services and details the federal programs to support museums and libraries that are to be carried out by each office."

Philosophy and Sunrise on the Reaping

Prior to the March 18 release of Sunrise on the Reaping, author Suzanne Collins spoke to David Levithan, publisher and editorial director at Scholastic and one of Collins's editors. Here is an excerpt of that conversation that can be found in full on Collins’s website. But fans who haven’t gotten to the latest The Hunger Games title beware: There are spoilers!

David Levithan: As signaled in the quotes at the start, in Sunrise on the Reaping you're examining two particular aspects of philosopher David Hume's philosophy. The first involves the distinction between inductive and deductive reasoning. It's at the heart of the initial disagreement we see between Haymitch and Lenore Dove and resonates within the title of the book. Can you talk a little about why you chose to title the book Sunrise on the Reaping, and why what might seem to some to be an absurd question—Is the sun guaranteed to rise tomorrow morning?—actually leads to some of the greater themes of the book.

Suzanne Collins: Let's start with the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is top-down logic. It works from the general to the specific. Like, "All human beings need oxygen to survive. I am a human being. I need oxygen to survive." If your premise is true, then your conclusion is correct.

But inductive reason goes from the specific to the general. "My cat Zorro loves yogurt. Your cat Fluffy loves yogurt. Therefore, all cats love yogurt." But do they? Your conclusion might be considered probable if you witnessed a bunch of other cats loving yogurt, but it's not a certainty.

So, is the sun guaranteed to rise tomorrow morning? David Hume would say no. If you say yes, you're using faulty inductive reasoning. Just because the sun rose yesterday and it rose this morning, there's no guarantee it will rise tomorrow. You can't rely on something happening in the future just because it happened in the past. That's an assumption. You're assuming the future will act like the past. The sun could rise . . . or an infinite number of other things could happen. You can say you feel it's highly probable that it will rise tomorrow based on your observations, but that's as certain as you can get. (Of course, as Haymitch points out about using inductive reasoning, this is kind of how we plan out our lives.)

Lenore Dove applies the sunrise idea to Haymitch's certainty that the reaping will always occur on his birthday because it always has in the past. But, in fact, the reaping's only been around for fifty years. And even if it'd been around for a million years, it still wouldn't be a done deal. She wants him to recognize that and accept that the reaping isn't inevitable. Because if he believes it's inevitable, he will never think it can be ended, let alone think that he might be capable of ending it himself.

That's where the title came from. Sunrise on the Reaping. Lenore Dove's convinced it's not a certainty. She can imagine a world without it. The future can be different than the past. She makes Haymitch promise that he will fight to make sure there is never another sunrise on the reaping. It becomes his dramatic goal, his mission, and his reason for living. But it takes many years to achieve.

Apply for News Literacy Project fellowship

Applications are now open for the News Literacy Project’s District Fellowship Program: a three-year, $30,000 grant to support school districts to develop and implement district-wide news and media literacy education. Working with NLP, fellowship districts create plans to teach students news literacy skills, empowering students to be active participants in our democracy.

During the first year of the program, fellows work with NLP to lay the foundation and develop an action plan for executing news literacy instruction in their district. During the second year, fellows pilot their implementation plans. Finally, in the third year, fellows continue to implement their plan and expand their impact.

Deadline for applying is May 16.

Eric Carle Honors honorees announced

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art announced this year’s Carle Honors honorees. The 2025 Carle Honors honorees are:

Artist (for lifelong innovation in the field): George Ford

Angel (whose generous resources are crucial to making illustrated children’s book art exhibitions, education programs, and related projects a reality): Cooperative Children’s Book Center

Bridge (individuals or organizations who have found inspired ways to bring the art of the picture book to larger audiences through work in other fields): Seattle Children’s Theatre

Mentor (editors, designers, and educators who champion the art form): Andrea Davis Pinkney

The honorees will be celebrated at the Museum’s annual gala and fundraiser at The New York Historical in New York City on Thursday, September 25, 2025. The evening will be hosted by National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Mac Barnett. 

Bram Stoker Awards nominees announced

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced the nominees for the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards. The middle grade and YA novel nominees are:

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel

● Mary Averling, The Curse of Eelgrass Bog (Razorbill)

● Michaelbrent Collings, The Witch in the Woods (Shadow Mountain Publishing)

● Adrianna Cuevas, The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

● Robert P. Ottone, There’s Something Sinister in Center Field (Cemetery Gates Media)

● Eden Royce, The Creepening of Dogwood House (HarperCollins/Walden Pond)

Superior Achievement in a YA Novel

● Adam Cesare, Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

● Ann Fraistat, A Place for Vanishing (Delacorte Press)

● Natalie C. Parker, Come Out, Come Out (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

● Lora Senf, The Losting Fountain (Union Square & Co.)

● Joelle Wellington, The Blonde Dies First (S & S)

The 2024 Bram Stoker Awards will be announced on June 14, 2025, during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards Banquet held during StokerCon 2025 in Stamford, CT.

BookLooks shuts down

Moms for Liberty’s book rating and review site, BookLooks.org, shut down on March 23, taking down all book-related information from the site. While the site can still be accessed, there are no longer any ratings or reports. The conservative organization that created the site that was used by those filing complaints about books and seeking their removal released this statement: "It has been quite the ride with many ups and downs since God called us to this work in 2022, but after much prayer and reflection it has become apparent that His work for us here is complete and that He has other callings for us. We give thanks to Him for the opportunity to do this work, and we are grateful for the kind words of support from all those who found this work useful. Our charge was always to help inform parents and it would appear that mission has been largely accomplished. We pray that publishers will take up the torch and be more transparent regarding explicit content in their books so that there will be no need for a BookLooks.org in the future.”