Books & Media

The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze by Derrick Barnes and Champion by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raymond Obstfeld, and Ed Laroche are this year's winners.

This month’s round-up features some big adventures, open-world racing, and a couple of sequels that are perfect for a night alone or with a friend.

In this Q&A series, SLJ poses five questions and a request for a book recommendation to a debut YA author. Shannon J. Spann discusses A Stage Set for Villains in this latest installment.

Hypergifted by Gordon Korman leads holds this week. Also in demand are new titles by Lauren Tarshis, Katherine Quinn, Petra Lord, and Shannon J. Spann. Amazon releases its editors’ picks for February. ALA’s Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table announces its inaugural awards winners. The Hans Christian Andersen Award shortlist and the Audie Awards finalists are revealed. People recommends children’s books that celebrate Black History. Plus, bestsellers and interviews with Jeff Kinney, Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price, and Melanie Florence and Matt James.

At the 2026 Youth Media Awards, author Candace Fleming became the first person to receive the Children’s Literature Legacy Award and the Margaret A. Edwards Award in the same year. In addition, her book Death in the Jungle won the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

The SLJ reviews editors rounded up our reviews of the books lauded at the 2026 Youth Media Awards. Here, the reviews of the Geisel, Odyssey, Alex, and Batchelder Awards.

Here are the winners of the 2026 ALA Youth Media Awards, announced Monday, January 26 in Chicago.

All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson wins the Newbery; Fireworks, illustrated by Cátia Chien, earns the Caldecott; and Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories, an anthology edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith, was named the Printz Award winner at the 2026 Youth Media Awards.

As she dealt with grief herself, Watson wrote All the Blues in the Sky to give readers permission to feel all of the emotions related with loss and help them cope with it.