If you want to be serious, you can tell the Comic Book Shop Guy that it’s in his best interest to see comics as a much more inclusive space where people of diverse backgrounds can join together to celebrate innovative storytelling and keep comics publishing alive. And you can tell the person living in stereotypes that comics are a super vibrant art form, and at least since the moment Maus won the Pulitzer Prize it has been socially acceptable for smart people to take comics seriously....

While every season is an excellent time to read, I find the winter months particularly ideal for reading. I love hiking and being outside, but I can’t stand it when the weather gets too cold. In the winter, all I want to do is snuggle under blankets and read. I’m writing this on the first day of below-freezing temperatures here in Nashville, so I’m definitely feeling a strong desire to do nothing but read in my free time....

Underprivileged 14-year-old Layla Bailey isn’t used to being noticed. Except by the mean girls at school who tweet about her ragged appearance. But everything changes when Layla decides to film the unmentionable things in her own home for a science competition. Then the video goes viral. When Child Protective Services gets involved, Layla must face her bullies and her friends alike and embrace the mortifying reality of visibility. Can she figure out how to stand behind the truth she’s shown the world?...

Whether they’re starting at a school where they don’t know anyone else, have embarrassed themselves by dropping their lunch on the very first day of the year, or are feeling like their friends and they don’t share the same interests anymore, there’s a middle grade character who has been there. In this list, you’ll find a great group of kids ready to help middle grades take the next step into a new school year....

In picture books, several books deal with social-emotional learning, from childhood depression to coping with failure and anger at a sibling. There’s also a fantastic disability-themed picture book biography, a delightful 92-page choose-your-path book, and a beautiful picture book about a young boy visiting his grandmother in Korea. My middle grade choices have lots of amazing books, too, from new fantasies by award-winning authors to books that beautifully manage to juggle heartwarming with important social issues....

Paranormal mysteries books combine the thrill of the hunt with the escapism of the supernatural. Sometimes the mystery unfolds like a procedural where supernatural detectives and amateur sleuths pursue leads from ghosts, werewolves, goddesses, and djinn, taking the reader into a magical underworld along the way. Other paranormal mysteries have their protagonists unravel clues about how the paranormal itself works. And often, at least part of the paranormal mystery is understanding how a character fits into a world far stranger than they had imagined....

I write this newsletter with a heavy heart. After a year of rising anti-Asian hate, we witnessed the murder of six Asian women in Georgia on Tuesday as well as attacks on and murders of Asian elders across America. As an Asian-American woman, I am devastated by the news. This past Friday, I took over Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers’ Instagram account (my publisher) to recommend books by Asian authors and illustrators....

Discover an epic tale of magic, revenge, and an empire on the verge of ruin in the first ever novel set in the blockbuster universe of League of Legends. It all started with the Playstation we got for Christmas when we were kids. It was love at first sight for us. My parents would set up a little egg timer on top of our TV, and we’d be allowed up to one hour of game playing each....

You may wonder what makes a poetry collection queer. Some might argue that the poems included must have a specific focus on queerness or certain related themes. I disagree! As a queer writer myself, I think anything I write is inherently shaped by my queerness and how I move through the world as a queer person. When it comes to poetry, I don’t believe the poet’s queerness can be separated from their art....

Date Me Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye It starts with an innocent dare. For one whole week, Bryson Keller has to date whoever asks him out on Monday. When Kai decides to ask Bryson out, maybe it isn’t just because of the dare. This sweet and funny novel also touches on growing up biracial, religious homophobia, and peer violence. 10 Things I Hate About Pinky by Sandhya Menon Pinky may not be the prim daughter her parents would like, but she cares about things!...

A good book makes the best gift. Check off your holiday shopping list with the best books for friends and family. I don’t know about you, but whenever I need a gift for someone, I always get them a book. Whether they like books or not, because books are the best. But sometimes it’s hard to know which books to get when there are roughly a million or so books published in the U....

2020 Psychological Thrillers 2021 Psychological Thrillers Want more recent psychological thrillers? Check out these fall 2020 thrillers. 

Maybe you should have a little break. Cut yourself some slack. Read when you feel like it and don’t feel bad when you can’t manage to read. The world is on fire and you don’t need to stress yourself out trying to do more of anything. If you insist on continuing down this path, be forewarned: these are absurdities concocted by a cheerfully nihilistic nerd with a dark sense of humor....

Each year they award $10,000 and a bronze sculpture to the best books in five categories: Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. In a live-streamed ceremony hosted by Phoebe Robinson, author of You Can’t Touch My Hair And Other Things I Still Have to Explain, Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay, and the newly released Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, the winners were announced on Wednesday, November 17, 2021....

Here are 21 of my favorite prolific audiobook narrators. These voice actors stand out not just for the brilliance of their work, but because they have all narrated at least 20 books. That’s hundreds of hours of great listening. I’ve included what I consider to be each narrator’s “must listen” book. In most cases, this is simply the book that made me fall in love with that narrator. I’ve also included some of their other notable work, including new releases, classics, and some lesser-known gems....

Ta-Nehisi Coates is reading American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson A post shared by Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisipcoates) on Oct 3, 2019 at 2:48pm PDT Margaret Atwood is reading Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline A post shared by Margaret Atwood (@therealmargaretatwood) on Oct 1, 2019 at 1:35pm PDT Laurie Halse Anderson is reading Internment by Samira Ahmed https://www.instagram.com/p/B2VIF9mgy5e/ Taylor Jenkins Reid is reading Good Talk by Mira Jacob A post shared by Taylor Jenkins Reid (@tjenkinsreid) on Sep 24, 2019 at 10:00am PDT...

scary books for kids who like Picture Books* The Call of Cthulhu (For Beginning Readers) by R.J. Ivankovic This delightful parody is the Lovecraft/Dr Seuss mash up you didn’t know you[r child] needed. Dhegdheer: A Scary Somali Folktale by Marian A. Hassan From the Somali Bilingual Book Project, this is a hair-raising tale of a monster who gobbles up everyone who crosses her path. Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara At the edge of town lives a girl witch who needs to rid her house of its spooky ghost problem in this sweet story....

When Chloe Pierce’s mom forbids her to apply for a spot at the dance conservatory of her dreams, she devises a secret plan to drive two hundred miles to the nearest audition. But Chloe hits her first speed bump when her annoying neighbor Eli insists upon hitching a ride, threatening to tell Chloe’s mom if she leaves him and his smelly dog, Geezer, behind. So now Chloe’s chasing her ballet dreams down the east coast with two unwanted (but kinda cute) passengers in her car, butterflies in her stomach, and a really dope playlist on repeat....

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu Vivian is fed up with the toxic masculinity and blatant sexism that rages through her Texas high school, so she decides to take a page out of her mom’s book—a ’90s riot grrrl—and create a zine to push back, which she circulates through her school. Before she knows it, she has a feminist revolution on her hands! This book was picked up by Amy Poehler, and according to IMDB, is in post-production....

Kingdoms have begun to fall to a doomsday cult, the magical Graced are being persecuted, and an ancient power threatens to break free. But with the world hurtling toward its prophesized end, one man’s haunting vision reveals the dangerous beginnings of a plan to stop the Age of Darkness. Six of Crows meets Graceling with a dash of ‘Winter is Coming’ in Katy Rose Pool’s Age of Darkness series, which Kirkus calls “well-crafted, surprising, and gripping....