Mother's Day is coming up and there is no shortage of new board and picture books to share with young readers leading up to the holiday. Across this selection, the maternal figures featured illustrate the special bond between a mother and child. Enjoy these titles to celebrate moms of all kinds on Mother's Day and throughout the year.

Genre-blending books offer readers the opportunity to comfortably expand across boundaries and try something different while still in the safety of their preferred reading choice. Here are 14 middle grade graphic novels that blend genres to perfection.

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.
 

In our last round of reviews of banned classics, SLJ and NCTE cover two of Jane Austen's works, the timely Fahrenheit 451, and the heartbreaking I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

Pragda Stream is an educational streaming platform with a fresh offering of Latin American films, documentaries, and series to a U.S. audience. See what our reviewer had to say about its curated list for middle and high schoolers.

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.

Discussing her latest novel Tree. Table. Book. with SLJ, Lois Lowry explains how, from her first book to The Giver to now, she has always been intrigued with the concept of the gifts that age and youth can give to one another. 

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.