September 8 is Jon Scieszka’s birthday. Next week is Roald Dahl’s. I like author and illustrator birthdays, and it’s fun to share them with kids too. One of the best places to find them is over at Through the Looking Glass. Click here for their big ol’ list, sorted by month.

The latest outrage in the book world comes from Kathleen Hale and her article for The Guardian ‘Am I being catfished?” An author confronts her number one critic. Aside from making the author look terrible, it brings up all kinds of questions about the current state of online book reviewing. (Warning: the article contains occasional […]

Nominations for the 2014 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (CYBILS) are now open! Did you like a book this year? Click here to visit the Cybils site and nominate it.

The new school year is upon us, and The Horn Book took a moment to highlight the cutest, weirdest, most dysfunctional and more of recent children’s lit. It’s the 2013-14 Yearbook Superlatives. Click the image below to read.

Amazon is now offering Kindle Unlimited, an all-you-can-read e-book service that will cost 9.99 per month. Kindle Unlimited is stirring up all sorts of reactions online: Huffington Post says what I was thinking: this is sort of a glorified library card On the flip side, Tom Worstall thinks the UK should ditch libraries and give everyone a Kindle […]

Travis here with a quick public service announcement for those who love children’s literature: In the lead-up to the release of their book Wild Things! Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature, authors Betsy Bird (A Fuse #8 Production) and Julie Danielson (Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast) are posting some of the true stories that weren’t included […]

Have you been following the discussion about the latest update in the ALSC policy for service on award committees? Roger Sutton talks about it in the current Horn Book editorial and the comments section has been lighting up. If you’ve served on an award committee or you hope to, you’ll want to read this. Click […]

What happens when a popular hashtag founded by a respected educator is used by a publisher for their purposes? We have a Twitter controversy on our hands. The issue was #bookaday, the popular hashtag started by Donalyn Miller and used for years by children’s and YA folks to share and discuss their daily summer reading. […]

Hot off the presses! The 2014 Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards have been announced. Many thanks to Sam Bloom for the scoop. Fiction honors: Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein; Boxers+Saints by Gene Luen Yang Fiction winner: Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith I get the feeling this is just the first of many awards coming for […]

It’s time to get your children’s literature nerd on. The Caldecott-Medal-winning team of Philip and Erin Stead just started up a blog Number Five Bus Presents… where they converse with other folks in the business of making books for kids. The first episode (note to self: start calling my blog posts episodes) is up – […]

It was pretty surprising news this week when Rush Limbaugh won the Children’s Choice Book Award for Author of the Year. Click here to watch the video. Reactions from the corner of the children’s literature world I tread can be categorized as nonplussed. Vicky Smith at Kirkus skewers reviews Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims. […]

If you’re not familiar with the Sharp Schu Book Club, tonight (Tuesday, March 25) might be a good time to get acquainted. At 8:00 pm ET teacher Colby Sharp (click here for his Twitter) and teacher-librarian John Schu (click here for his Twitter) will be leading a discussion about Harriet the Spy, which is celebrating […]

The winners of the 2013 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (CYBILS) were announced on Friday and it’s a group to check out. The award mixes literary quality and kid appeal and you can see that represented in our winners. Click here to see the entire list.