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I received an MLIS and became a middle school librarian 20 years ago. Our school board recently expressed no confidence in librarians and teachers to make book selection decisions. I [...]

I'm a retired public librarian who just moved from another city. I volunteer with the Friends of the Library book sale at the public library. I was recently sorting books [...]

I recently asked a second-grade boy what he likes to read. He replied, 'Chapter books.' I asked him, 'Do you like humor, adventure, or maybe superheroes?' 'Just chapter books,' he [...]

The immense wildfires that have blazed their way through parts of California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington in 2020 and 2021 are believed to be fueled by climate change. According [...]

You see a lot of censorship cases and hear from a lot of frustrated librarians and teachers. How do you stay hopeful? Free speech advocacy groups across the nation are [...]

This year, Banned Books Week is September 26-October 6, and Jason Reynolds, the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, is the inaugural honorary chair. 'Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us' [...]

I have been the librarian at my elementary school for 22 years. I never felt intimidated by a parent or an administrator until this year. My principal told the faculty [...]

Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the House of Representatives, was the founder of the group that became the Congressional Black Caucus; in 1972, she launched an ultimately [...]

The director of the public library where I serve as children's librarian recently pulled a number of books that deal with sex and sexuality. The mother of an eight-year-old requested [...]

In Herat, Afghanistan, a grandmother tells the story of the violence in the city's war-torn streets and how the Taliban has stripped the people of art, music, and learning. She [...]

Caldecott Medalist Pinkney discusses the artistic process behind A Place to Land, his recent collaboration with Barry Wittenstein that's centered around the days leading up to Martin Luther King Jr.'s [...]

I am the library media specialist at a K-8 private school. A parent of a kindergartner doesn't want her son to borrow any books that contain violence. Should I censor [...]

The mother of a fourth grader complained to my principal that I gave her son a book she finds offensive. The principal reprimanded me and told me that because of [...]

Finding Langston (2018), a Coretta Scott King (Author) Honor Book and winner of the 2019 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, takes place in 1946 just after 11-year-old Langston's mother [...]

I work in a small district with four schools: two elementary, one middle, and one high school. The four librarians meet monthly to discuss issues affecting library services to students. [...]

I'm a librarian in an elementary school with a diverse student body. Last year a parent asked the school board to remove informational books about Christmas celebrations in other countries [...]

Lauren Wolk, author of the 2017 Newbery Honor Book Wolf Hollow, discusses Beyond the Bright Sea, her new novel about feeling isolated, searching for family, and experiencing the power of [...]

How do you give children the books they want without getting in trouble with parents? Let children take the books they want. If a parent doesn't like what a child [...]

Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in Washington, D.C., on July 11, 1955. Five weeks later, they were arrested at their home in [...]

'Voice in contemporary fiction requires a finely tuned ear. But no matter how finely tuned your ear may be, you simply don't have the experience of living in a time [...]

I'm a middle school librarian, and my son is a high school junior. We don't live in Florida, where there has been so much outrage about All Boys Aren't Blue [...]

I'm a first-year librarian in a school serving grades 5-12. The entire library collection has been available to all students. When a parent complained that her fifth grader checked out [...]

I'm an elementary school librarian and feel unprepared for materials challenges. The only library school course I took dealing with intellectual freedom was taught by a nonlibrarian with textbook knowledge [...]

Betty before X is historical fiction but is based on the young life of Dr. Betty Shabazz, an American civil rights icon and wife of Malcolm X. The novel relates [...]

In the Nocturnals, a series for middle-grade readers, Tracey Hecht weaves facts about nocturnal animals into engaging fictional plots filled with humor, adventure, and mystery. The three main characters are [...]

September includes Banned Books Week, and Alan Gratz's new novel, Ban This Book (2017), is ideal for helping young readers understand how censorship affects their lives. Nine-year-old Amy Anne Ollinger [...]

Southern California and the Pacific Northwest may not seem far apart to some, but they might as well be separate countries for two of Elana K. Arnold's protagonists: Iris Abernathy [...]

In celebration of 25 years of Book Links, we are taking another look at articles from earlier issues. Pat Scales' examination of father-son relationships in Walter Dean Myers' Newberry Honor [...]

For many families, handling mental illness is a stark reality. These titles look at both parents and children struggling with such disorders. Lisa, Bright and Dark, by John Neufeld, was [...]

In Angela Cerrito's The Safest Lie, Anna Bauman is only seven years old when she and her parents are forced to move into a tiny apartment in the Jewish ghetto [...]

Many librarians and educators in my district recommend Common Sense Media (CSM) as a book review source. Can you provide updated guidance about why CSM is problematic for librarians and [...]

For 20 years I've taught language arts at the only middle school In a small midwestern town. Now I'm the librarian In the same school. The biography section is old [...]

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The U.S. suffered thousands of casualties on board the USS Arizona, but Japanese Americans living [...]

Set in 1968, Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer (2010) takes three sisters from Brooklyn, where they live with their father and grandmother, to Oakland, California, to meet Cecile, the mother [...]

Young readers study the civil rights movement in school. Most may know something about the March on Washington, Bloody Sunday, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the bombing of the Sixteenth [...]

The friendship between Truman Capote and Nelle Harper Lee was first revealed through the characters of Dill and Scout in Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In many [...]

I'm not a trained children's librarian, but I'm responsible for children's services in an active branch library. We have a waiting list for books like the 'Junie B. Jones,' 'Captain [...]

I'm the children's librarian in a small public library. We are in the process of evaluating our collection, but the library doesn't have a policy that guides the staff in [...]

Children have a natural interest in using blocks, Erector sets, Lincoln Logs, and LEGOs to build things. Sometimes they call upon their own creativity, and other times they follow detailed [...]

In conversation with other school librarians about the middle grade book Don't Turn Out the Lights: A Tribute to Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, one librarian [...]

Steve Sheinkin's Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the Worlds Most Dangerous Weapon (2012) is an amazing account of the Manhattan Project. Its accolades are numerous: it was named a 2013 [...]

My high school serves students who are economically challenged. This creates unique hurdles. Foremost, we lose a large number of materials each year. With our budget, we can't sustain these [...]

I've heard that virtual story times are bringing more book challenges. Nothing has been challenged in my school, but how do we deal with this issue? Kudos to libraries offering [...]