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I came late to science fiction—or, at least, later than many other fans. Many have solid, childhood origin stories: their passion was kindled by reading Asimov and Heinlein by flashlight under the covers, or by seeking out Star Wars novelizations after wolfing down the films on VHS. Me? I was always skeptical. Aliens, you say? Or, worse, fiction about…physics? Warp drives left me cold and space operas left me more lost than an Italian libretto....

Johnson said about the position, “Being the honorary chair for Banned Books Week is important to me because I know what it is like to grow up and not have stories about my own lived experience, nor the truth outside of an ahistorical context. This is a fight for the truth that has always existed even if it rarely gets told. When the youth are empowered with stories about the experiences of others, they become adults who understand the necessity for equity and equality and have the tools to build a world the likes of which we have never seen....

Twin sisters Sunshine and Margot are as different as chalk and cheese, but what they do have in common is a complete lack of luck when it comes to love. Emotionally stunted by a mother who dropped everything to follow boyfriend after boyfriend, the sisters have ever only had each other for support and to share a pint of post-heartache ice cream. When Margot, an etiquette specialist, is hired to work with Bianca, an icon from Hollywood’s Golden Age with romantic entanglements of her own, she and Sunshine become the daughters she never had, and their friendship teaches them how to embrace the quirks that make them unique, and how to demand the love they deserve just as they are....

When I recently went back and reread this issue, I was unpleasantly surprised by how racist it is, particularly in the first half. Sure, a certain amount of bigotry is to be expected from older comics (and newer ones, apparently). But the X-Men have been interpreted as a metaphor for just about every oppressed group on the planet—Jewish people, the LGBT community, you name it—and the creative teams have encouraged these readings by deliberately evoking real-world struggles for equality....

I think what’s so captivating with TikTok is the specificity of the videos that wind up on your FYP and the quickness in which you consume content. With videos only a few minutes long, it’s easy to blow through hundreds without coming up for air. More than once, I’ve stumbled onto a video verbalizing something I thought was something specific to me. Ways I eat my food or things I find inherently embarrassing (loading my carry-on in the overhead bin anyone?...

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary L. Trump White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin J. DiAngelo Untamed by Glennon Doyle Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel by Celeste Ng American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John R....

Imagining what the characters might be reading in their endless days gives me some brief joy between seasons. If they do take a break from philosophy lab experiments, I have some fun fiction recommendations for the Brainy Bunch/Soul Squad. There will be mild spoilers for dialogue ahead because it is too hard to talk about this show and not quote its hilarious lines. Eleanor Shellstrop I know her favorite book is Kylie Jenner’s Instagram feed, but I think Eleanor would love to dive into We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby....

The decision, shared by story time hosts Trent Lira and Devin Will, was published in Houstonia on Tuesday. The staff shared they came to the conclusion to end the program after news broke that, prior to following volunteer background check procedure, an individual convicted of the sexual assault of a minor had read to the children. The background check process was enforced starting in October; every individual who has presented for the event since then has been the subject of a check....

Non-Linear Narrative Style And Trauma When we talk about time, we need to understand it as a melting pot of multiple timelines and not as an independent period in history. The present is always a complicated juxtaposition and negotiation of past events. In Arundhati Roy’s The God Of Small Things, the temporal mix is not only an appendage of its postmodern, postcolonial narrative style but also crucial to the portrayal of the trauma of the characters....

I read my first Metonymy title last year: Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom. At the time I knew nothing about the press, and I can’t remember now where I heard about the book, but I loved it. Later that year, I bought another Metonymy title, Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang. I’d marked it as to-read at some point, but had trouble finding it at my library....

In this contemporary fantasy, the grieving biographer of a Victorian fantasist finds himself slipping inexorably into the supernatural world that consumed his subject. The library had rotating displays for the children’s paperbacks. Despite my stating repeatedly that the covers looked terrifying, I’d pull them out with fascination. They had such eye-grabbing images. And yet, they seemed too scary for my taste. I didn’t read much as it was, and I wanted to read for fun if ever....

In Catherine Spooner’s Contemporary Gothic, the author describes gothic fiction as a genre especially full of self-reference. In particular she says the literature is “cannibalistically consuming the dead body of its own tradition.” It truly doesn’t get any more gothic than defining gothic literature with such a spectacularly gothic metaphor. Jane Austen may be furthest thing from a forgotten corpse (sorry, Jane, that came out wrong). But she did consume seven of the lesser-known works in the genre, giving them a fascinating legacy....

A few years ago, when I was traveling to my cousin’s wedding, I had a Thomas Hardy–themed weekend. I rented the excellent 2015 adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd in my hotel room and later bought a copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles at a used bookshop next to the wedding venue. I had an angry, cathartic emotional reaction to the use of the old folk song “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme” in the movie....

But when Banned Books Week ends, so often, too, does the energy of highlighting book challenges and censorship. In too many cases, the “celebration” leans heavily into talking about the books in specifics — a particular title was challenged or removed from a classroom because of a specific reason, which is then repackaged in media stories to make it sound as though the people behind these challenges are a minority, oddballs, conspiracy theorists, or simply the kind of people who are afraid their children might be exposed to queer or Black characters....

And yet. You just can’t. Remember. That. Title. Not for your life. One of the most magical things about books is the way they stick with us. But sometimes, the way they stick with us is, well, a little peculiar. There’s books where I remember the mood it impressed upon me, or the setting and moment in history it took me to, the distinct chemistry between certain characters…sometimes it’s nothing more than the image on its cover or a particular quote (which I may or may not have managed to paraphrase over the years)....

You also may think creating your own junk journal seems like an insurmountable task, but it’s easier than you’d think, and I’m going to show you how to make a junk journal using materials you probably already have around the house. How to Make a Junk Journal Step One: Make or Find Your Journal The most daunting piece of the whole process is actually the journal itself. There are plenty of creators who are binding their own pages together and covering them with beautiful leather, which creates a lovely final piece....

Part of me was very proud; mostly because the theme for Australia’s Childrens’ Book Week was “Reading is My Super-Power”. That means teachers could finally see comic books as “acceptable reading material”. And Squirrel Girl is positively one of the BEST role models for all kids today. Our 10-year-old son loves how Squirrel Girl thinks her way out of most conflicts, while the 13-year-old says her wacky sense of humour is refreshing amongst the heavy-laden sarcasm today....

The fact of the matter is, however it is you choose to organize your bookshelves, it has to be a system that works for you and one that will not only help you find the books you’re looking for, but also fit the space you have available. It might also matter that it’s aesthetically pleasing—it’s easy to laugh about that and call it superficial, but a good-looking bookshelf setup really does encourage reading....

Manga itself never fails to be popular. I cannot keep it on the shelves. The issues around manga is that they are expensive to purchase and there are sometimes zillions in a series. My advice is to purchase a few from each series and run the club to augment them. It is an amazing way to bring students together and draw new faces to the library. Running a manga club takes a lot of time and effort but worth it in my opinion....

Get Some Basic Points About the Book You’re going to need something to go on. We’ll stick with dragons. This was a dragon book. Believe it or not, that’s going to be enough. Navigate yourself over to Google Images and type dragon book cover into that bad boy. If your patron isn’t looking for a book about dragons, but in fact about flowers, then just substitute flowers for dragons. If they have more detail, like “it was about a woman and dragons,” then add the word woman....