Books

I really wish folks would get the whole story before they go running around spreading inaccurate information. People are just so eager to create a villian or miscarriage of justice or something to make them feel better — Larry White, Executive Director* An anonymous source reached out to me the morning of July 15, stating that they’d received word about a library system in the state of Oklahoma planning to implement a staff policy that would restrict what library staff could say about abortion. Hours later, a now-deleted post on...

British author and illustrator Raymond Briggs died Tuesday in Brighton, England at the age of 88. For the past six decades, he has delighted readers with his often melancholic children’s and adult stories of everyday British life. In many of his picture books, he used unique elements, like unconventional storylines and comic book panels to juxtapose moments of action alongside more quiet moments. The Snowman, for instance, is about the brief friendship had between a boy and the snowman he builds before the snowman melts. It was adapted into a...

“I’m not trying to ban any books. I’m trying to stop an indoctrination campaign against kids. Any person in this county that has children knows full well what I’m talking about,” said South Carolina Senator Josh Kimball in a press conference held yesterday across the street from Spartanburg County Public Library’s main branch. The senator is demanding libraries remove books he deems inappropriate from their collection or face a loss of funding. At the conference, Kimball displayed books including You Be You, My Own Way: Celebrating Gender Freedom for Kids,...

Narrator, author, and popular historian David McCullough died this past Sunday at his home in Hingham, Massachusetts. Before passing away at 89, millions knew McCullough as an award-winning author and TV host. McCullough’s writings were greatly celebrated, winning him Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of two U.S. presidents— for Truman in 1992 and for John Adams in 2001— as well as National Book Awards for The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal in 1977 and Mornings on Horseback in 1981. The time and care McCullough put...

Portal fantasies – fantasy stories that involve hopping from one high-concept magical universe to another, usually through a specific mechanism that allows the characters to travel between worlds – have been popular throughout the history of the genre. Portal fantasies arguably predate the novel form itself; legends about travels between the Nine Realms in Viking mythology, or journeys to the land of the fairies in Celtic myths, could be viewed as early portal fantasies. One of the earliest fantasy novels ever published, The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, can potentially...

I like to consider myself a curious person. I always want to know how things work, who did this thing, and why that happened. What I’m not always great about is the follow-/ through. Sometimes I look at a prose nonfiction book about a topic and think maybe I should just read the Wikipedia article instead. And sometimes I do. But other times, I still want a particular writer’s perspective on a thing, especially if they were part of something. Or maybe it’s a memoir, or a how-to guide, that...

I’ve been going through the incredible responses to a survey on what tools and information would be helpful for fighting back against book bans. One thing that popped up was having quick templates and guides to action for folks who want to do something but don’t know where to begin. Today, let’s look at how to talk at school board and library board meetings. There is a downloadable template included, as well as a shareable graphic for social media. Why Talk at a School or Library Board Meeting Every public...

Jamestown Conservatives, a right-wing group in Jamestown Township, Michigan, is responsible for helping defund their public library. After a year-long battle with the Patmos Library, which has included the departure of the Library Director Amber McLain after a harassment campaign by the group, the library did not win its primary ballot measure to renew its millage rate (also known as the tax rate). Throughout the town, members of the group posted signage highlighting the library’s LGBTQ+ materials. The library, which has been receiving challenges about everything from specific queer books...

Warner Bros.’ Batgirl movie has officially been canceled. It was originally approved in 2021 as the studio was making efforts to make more movies for HBO Max, but now it won’t even show on the streaming service. The decision to forego releasing the movie— which starred Leslie Grace, J.K. Simmons, and Michael Keaton— comes not as a result of a lack of quality. Rather, officials site wanting the studio’s DC-based movies to be blockbusters. That Warner Bros. is opting to not earn back some of the $90M spent producing the...

Today's Featured Deals In Case You Missed Yesterday's Most Popular Deals Previous Daily Deals A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow for $2.99 Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by Lindsay Marcott for $1.99 Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett for $2.99 The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt for $1.99 Sadie by Courtney Summers for $2.99 A Hero Born by Jin Yong & Anna Holmwood (translator) for $1.99 The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman for $2.99 In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt for $3.99 Looking...

The San Lorenzo Library in California held a Drag Queen Story Hour event in June for Pride Month with Panda Dulce. The event was disrupted when the Proud Boys — a white supremacists group that is designated as a terrorist group in Canada and New Zealand — marched into the library and began shouting slurs and threats. One wore a shirt with an AK-47 on it and the text, “Kill your local pedophile.” They refused to leave when librarians asked them to, and Panda Dulce was removed to another room by...

Today's Featured Deals In Case You Missed Yesterday's Most Popular Deals Previous Daily Deals Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono & Emily Balistrieri (translator) for $1.99 Sarong Party Girls by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan for $1.99 Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls for $1.99 Looking for Alaska by John Green for $2.99 The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani for $2.99 Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne for $1.99 Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy for $2.99 Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko for $4.99 Anchored Hearts by Priscilla Oliveras for $0.99 Girls on Fire...

Today's Featured Deals In Case You Missed Yesterday's Most Popular Deals Previous Daily Deals Anchored Hearts by Priscilla Oliveras for $0.99 Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman for $1.99 The Color Master by Aimee Bender for $4.99 The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova for $1.99 A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Madeleine L'Engle & Hope Larson for $2.99 The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa & Philip Gabriel (translator) for $1.99 American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson for $1.99 A Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman for...

Today's Featured Deals In Case You Missed Yesterday's Most Popular Deals Previous Daily Deals American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson for $1.99 A Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman for $1.99 Straight from the Horse's Mouth by Meryem Alaoui & Emma Ramadan (translator) for $4.99 Early Riser by Jasper Fforde for $1.99 Northern Spy by Flynn Berry for $1.99 Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce for $1.99 Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao for $1.99 The Long Drop Denise Mina for $2.99 Heart and Seoul by Jen Frederick for $4.99...