EveryLibrary and GLAAD teamed up to offer practical advice for fighting censorship in your community; the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) announces its 2023 Best Book Awards; and publishing news from Baker & Taylor and Nosy Crow in this edition of News Bites.

EveryLibrary and GLAAD partnered to create a playbook, “Book Bans: A guide for community response and action,” to help communities fight against book bans that are overwhelmingly targeting LGBTQIA+ stories and authors.

The resource offers step-by-step recommendations to: Organize a local coalition that includes students, parents, teachers, librarians, LGBTQIA+ advocates, authors, health professionals, and clergy; create fact-based messages to inform the community and present to school and library boards; engage social and local media with interview voices and resources; hold school and library boards accountable to ensure policy is being followed in book reconsiderations and demand reforms to end the wave of book banning.

CALA announces 2023 Best Book Awards

The Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) Best Book Award subcommittee has announced the recipients of the 2023 CALA Best Book Awards. The annual CALA Best Book Award recognizes outstanding children, YA, and adult books, published in English or Chinese, that exhibit excellence in addressing China, Chinese, and people of Chinese origin or Chinese cultural heritage written by Chinese authors or authors of Chinese descent to raise awareness of these topics and authors in North America.

The children’s and YA winners and honor titles are:

Children's Fiction

Winner: Maizy Chen's Last Chance by Lisa Yee

Honor: Key Player by Kelly Yang

Children's Nonfiction

Winner: She Persisted: Maya Lin by Grace Lin

Honor: The Rise (and Falls) of Jackie Chan by Kristen Mai Giang

Young Adult Fiction

Winner: This Place is Still Beautiful by XiXi Tian

Honor: If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

Young Adult Nonfiction

Winner: Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao

No honor book was chosen.

National Women's History Museum taking submissions for lesson plans

Each summer, the National Women's History Museum invites K-12 educators to participate in the Museum’s "For Educators, By Educators" digital classroom resource development initiative. Educators collaborate with Museum staff to create K-12 lesson plans that help learners explore women's impacts on society. All resources developed through this initiative are included in the Museum's catalog of online classroom resources, which are available free of charge.

While any topic can be submitted, this year, NWHM encourages educators to offer lesson plan topics related to the Museum’s newest exhibition, We Who Believe in Freedom: Black Feminist DC. All lesson plans must align with the C3 Framework for Social Studies Standard. Participants will receive an honorarium of $300 per lesson plan. Each participant can submit up to two original lesson plans.

To participate, educators should review the “For Educators, By Educators” criteria and submit a proposal for consideration by June 16.

Once selected, Museum staff will collaborate with submitters over the summer months to create resources that help learners better understand women’s history in the classroom.

Baker & Taylor adds Paw Prints Readers imprint

This fall, Baker & Taylor will add Paw Prints Readers, a dedicated imprint for beginning readers, to Paw Prints Publishing, its original children’s publishing program, the company announced. Paw Prints Publishing, which launched last year, is dedicated to readers ages 3 to 8. The imprint will publish works "exploring diverse cultures and backgrounds," according to the announcement, and have a four-leveled program aimed at ages 4 through 7 and up. Paw Prints Publishing will launch with seven titles across two new series in Fall 2023, with the already-established series “Jeet & Fudge” also being folded under the Readers brand.

Nosy Crow launching imprint with University of Cambridge

Nosy Crow and the University of Cambridge will partner to create a range of children’s books to sell in the UK and North America under the Nosy Crow imprint launching in 2024. The nonfiction books will be published with joint Nosy Crow/University of Cambridge branding and cover a variety of topics, with an emphasis on STEAM, for children aged 0 to 12.

The first title, Beasts from the Deep by Matt Ralphs and illustrated by Kaley McKean, is scheduled to publish in North America in June 2025. There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question: 213 Weird and Wonderful Questions About the World, Expertly Answered! by Mike Rampton and illustrated by Guilherme Karsten, will publish in October 2025 in North America.