This month, we’re interviewing Amber McBride, author of debut novel-in-verse Me (Moth)! The novel is about a teen girl who is grieving the deaths of her family and a teen boy who crosses her path. The book publishes this August and has just earned its first star from Booklist, who described the story as being “hauntingly romantic.”
Amber shares more about her inspiration for the story and what she hopes young readers will learn here.
Read a Q&A with Amber here →Social emotional learning (SEL) units “foster mindful, engaged behavior among students. Recognizing the value of emotional awareness for any student population, the core SEL competencies include self- and social awareness, relationship skills, decision-making, and self-management,” says School Library Journal in a recent article.
Find books to support your SEL units here!
Shelf Essentials is a backlist publishing initiative presented by Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group to highlight picture books from beloved BIPOC Creators. With this program we lift up critically acclaimed stories, authors, and illustrators, and will encourage readers everywhere to celebrate different cultures and make storytime more inclusive. From tender family stories to important conversation starters, no bookshelf is complete without these essentials reads. Each season we will showcase five backlist picture books, all available in paperback, some for the first time.
To learn more about Shelf Essentials, check out our brochure on Issuu here
and keep reading to preview our Fall 2020 Shelf Essentials selections!
Back-to-school season is just around the corner! Get ready to kick off your Best School Year Ever! Enter the Friends Forever Sweepstakes for your chance to win a virtual classroom or library visit from Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham, creators of the bestselling Friends middle grade graphic novel series. The winner will receive a virtual classroom visit, plus a classroom set of Real Friends, Best Friends, and Friends Forever. Everyone who enters will also receive a video from Shannon Hale delivering her “Best School Year Ever” kick-off speech, where she’ll share a special back-to-school message for students everywhere.
Learn more about this series here →Join five young adult authors for a conversation about their debut or sophomore titles moderated by Candice Mack, President of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association. Participating authors include Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (Ace of Spades), Cory Anderson (What Beauty There Is), Angeline Boulley (Firekeeper’s Daughter), Cassandra Hartt (The Sea is Salt and So Am I), and Joan He (The Ones We’re Meant to Find).
Now is the perfect time to dive into a new series or revisit an old favorite. Find a full list of series recommendations for readers of all ages here!
Plus, download a FREE 2020-2021 School Year Calendar, featuring popular middle grade series!
Browse popular series + download a free calendar →
Join us and our authors at these upcoming virtual events, including book buzzes, webinars, conferences, and more! Check back for updates, as more upcoming events will be added soon. Plus, ICYMI: watch archived videos from our past events here!
Booklist’s Graphic Novel Webinar
Friday, July 23rd at 1pm CT
Free registration here!
July is Graphic Novels month at Booklist, and we’re celebrating with this must-see panel, the first in a special two-part series. Books for Youth editor Sarah Hunter will chat with graphic novel creators, including Nidhi Chanani, creator of Jukebox. Tune in for insight into their creative processes and their exciting titles for middle-grade and young-adult readers!
Browse all of our July new releases, including new picture books, middle grade, and young adult books!
In honor of Pride Month, we’re interviewing Mike Curato, creator of Flamer, his debut graphic novel! With five starred reviews, this is a powerful story about a young boy’s path to self-discovery and acceptance. Mike shares more about his inspiration for the story and his advice for aspiring writers and illustrators here.
Read a Q&A with Mike here →
From the bestselling author of the Don’t Know Much About® books comes a dramatic account of the origins of democracy, the history of authoritarianism, and the reigns of five of history’s deadliest dictators.
What makes a country fall to a dictator? How do authoritarian leaders—strongmen—capable of killing millions acquire their power? How are they able to defeat the ideal of democracy? And what can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?
By profiling five of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history—Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein—Kenneth C. Davis seeks to answer these questions, examining the forces in these strongmen’s personal lives and historical periods that shaped the leaders they’d become.
Kenneth C. Davis wrote Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of the Democracy to provide insight into the lives of five leaders who callously transformed the world and serves as an invaluable resource in an era when democracy itself seems in peril.
Praise for Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of Democracy:
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year!
A YALSA 2021 Nonfiction Award Nominee!
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
★ “A fascinating, highly readable portrayal of infamous men that provides urgent lessons for democracy now.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Strongman is a book that is both deeply researched and deeply felt, both an alarming warning and a galvanizing call to action, both daunting and necessary to read and discuss.”
—Cynthia Levinson, author of Fault Lines in the Constitution
