School Library Journal News

Lone Star Grant Pushes Austin Library’s Reach
Austin Public Library’s (APL) youth services group gets together each year to figure out a budget for its wildly popular summer reading program, and every year it gets scrapped because there's not enough money. Luckily, a recent $300,000 grant from the Lone Star Libraries will meet this summer’s need.

Million Dollar NYC Media Center Searches for a Librarian
Need a new job? There’s an opening at a new $1.1 million library, which serves two New York City public schools.

Watch and Read: Spotlight on Media Tie-ins
This loquacious pooch, first introduced in Susan Meddaugh’s beloved Martha Speaks (Houghton, 1992) and five other popular picture books, made her television debut in the fall of 2008. Produced by WGBH in Boston along with Vancouver’s Studio B Productions, the animated series airs daily on PBS Kids and is now in its second season.

Doodle for Google Contest
Google invites K–12 public and private students to pick up a pen, pencil, paintbrush, or mouse between now and March 31, 2010, to create an illustration that best expresses this year's Doodle 4 Google theme: “If I Could Do Anything I Would…”

Westerfeld Wins Aussie’s Aurealis Award For Best YA Novel
Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan (S & S, 2009), a World War I steampunk novel, is winner of the 2009 Aurealis Award in the category of best young adult novel.

Hurry and Enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition
Think you have what it takes to be the next Stephenie Meyer? Here’s your chance to prove it. Amazon.com, its subsidiary CreateSpace, and the Penguin Group USA are accepting submissions for the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, an international contest that’s seeking the next popular novel.

Artist, Author Stephen Huneck Dies at 61
Stephen Huneck, a wood carving artist, furniture maker, and children’s book author and illustrator died January 7 from a self-inflected gun wound. He was 61 years old and lived in St. Johnsbury, VT.

Illinois Third Grade Teacher Wins 'SLJ' IRA Sweepstakes
Patti Key, a 25-year third-grade teacher, is heading to the International Reading Association’s (IRA) 55th annual convention in April—as the grand prize winner of the SLJ IRA Sweepstakes.

Watch and Read: Spotlight on Media Tie-ins
Ben 10, an animated television series produced by Cartoon Network Studios, first burst onto the scene in 2006. The show centers around Ben Tennyson, a boy who finds a mysterious watchlike device (known as the Omnitrix) that attaches permanently to his wrist and allows him to transform into 10 different alien forms, each possessing unique abilities.

President Obama Proposes Eliminating Federal School Library Funds
President Obama has delivered a slap in the face to school librarians. In his FY2011 budget proposal to Congress on Monday, he completely eliminated the Improving Literacy for School Libraries grant program, designed to boost academic achievement by providing students with access to up-to-date school library materials.

What Are They Reading for Fun? Independent Schools Edition
Realistic fiction and memoirs

Students to Help Teachers Better Use Tech
The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) believes that when it comes to technology training, we should look no further than a terrific resource already in the classroom—students.

Banned Dictionary Returned to Shelves
Copies of the Merriam-Webster's 10th Collegiate Edition dictionary (Merriam Webster, 2000) are back on classroom and library shelves at Oak Meadows Elementary School in Riverside County, CA, after being temporarily removed.

J. D. Salinger Dies at 91
J. D. Salinger, author of the iconic coming of age novel Catcher in the Rye (Little Brown, 1951), died January 27 from natural causes at his home in New Hampshire. He was 91.

The Challenge: Read 100 Books by 10-10-10
Looking for a way to get out of a reading rut, Melissa Klug and Kalen Landow decided to push themselves to read 100 books by October 10—10 books from 10 categories they normally wouldn’t choose.

Zora Howard: High School Senior, Slam Poet, and Youth Poet Laureate
Between homework and hanging with her friends, high school senior Zora Howard now fits the role of New York City’s first Youth Poet Laureate into her busy life. We caught up with this 16-year-old, who performs her poetry with such passion about everything from bi-racial hair to her grandmother’s throat cancer, to ask why the world should listen closely to its young people and how this student at Fiorello H. La Guardia High School plans to help.

Edgar Awards Snub Stead’s ‘When You Reach Me’
It might be more interesting to note what didn’t get nominated for this year’s Edgar Awards than what did. Among the missing from last week’s list are When You Reach Me (Random, 2009) by Rebecca Stead, the 2010 winner of the John Newbery Medal for outstanding literature.

YALSA Axes Venerable BBYA List 
Say good-bye to the venerable Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) list. The 15-member board of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) recently cast a unanimous vote to restructure many of the organization’s lists starting January 2011. The result? BBYA will no longer exist, but there’ll be a new list called "Best Fiction for Young Adults."

Libraries Face Perfect Storm: More Need, Less Funds
The demand on public libraries is only increasing, even as state and federal budget cuts squeeze both services and staff across the country, according to a new study from the American Library Association.

Little, Brown in Sticky Situation Over 'Whitewashed' Book Covers
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is changing the covers on Trenton Lee Stewart’s "Mysterious Benedict Society" series, following complaints that the character Sticky Washington, described as having light brown skin, appears on all three covers as white.