SLJ Staff

Sydney Smith wins the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, applications are open for Freedom to Read Foundation grants and a scholarship, Mo Willems offers new, free resources on YouTube, and more in News Bites.
 

Teens signing up for the Books Unbanned program at Brooklyn and Seattle Public Libraries shared their reasons for wanting the library card, while some of their peers discussed the impact of blocked websites, and an expert panel in Pennsylvania discussed the harm caused by restricting access to books.

Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks have joined Penguin Random House and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the state of Iowa. 

The report released today examines more than 4,000 book bans in 52 public school districts in 23 states from July to December 2023. 

On Take Actions for Library Day, the American Library Association announced its "Reader. Voter. Ready." campaign to increase library advocacy and civic engagement in advance of the November 5 elections.

Emily Drabinski shares the impact of personal attacks and those on libraries across the country; librarians fear new, punitive laws; Alaska school book removal lawsuit goes to federal court; and more in Censorship News.

Defending the Canon, reviews of classic lit by SLJ and NCTE—and James Patterson—grabbed readers' attention this week.

The Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 has seven repeat titles from the 2022 list, including Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe at No. 1 and All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson at No. 2.

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center released its latest Diversity Statistics report on children's literature, showing another year of small increases in books with BIPOC primary characters and significant BIPOC content.