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Equally important as the texts children read (or have read to them) is their ability to interact with books as objects, to be able to pick them up, turn pages, and, yes, occasionally chew on their edges. This early exposure helps build lifelong readers, and having books as playtime options will help your baby develop a sense of themselves as someone who regularly looks to books for enjoyment. Since play and exploration are a normal part of this process, board books are great for little hands that might rip or struggle with more delicate picture book pages....

Dictionary.com defines JOMO as “a feeling of contentment with one’s own pursuits and activities, without worry over the possibility of missing out on what others may be doing.” The term immediately resonated with me when I first heard it in an interview with Catherine Price, author of How To Break Up with Your Phone, on the self-care podcast Forever35. I feel the concept of JOMO probably rings true with many avid readers....

In Bringing Up Bookmonsters: The Joyful Way to Turn Your Child into a Fearless, Ravenous Reader, Amber Ankowski, PhD, and Andy Ankowski both hail the home library as deeply important to raising readers: Bookshelves are an important tool in showing your child that books are important to the household and where they can access them. And a nursery bookshelf is more than just storage for books; it’s different from other bookshelves in the house....

High fantasy novels are fascinating because writers are building worlds. And who builds and designs things? Men. In a high fantasy world, characters are busy overcoming challenges no one in the “real world” could dream of facing: fighting evil wizards, killing dragons, and learning magic. All the way back to Beowulf, it’s clear that these epic adventures are reserved for men. Who stays at home waiting to hear the tales?...

This has been a rough reading year for a lot of us. While many people have managed to read way more than usual because of an extended amount of free time, many others have lost their reading mojo. They’ve lost the inspiration to read, or can’t land on a book, bouncing from one to another without finishing. While I find myself regularly reading, I’ve definitely got a lot of rows marked DNF in my spreadsheet....

Jade, Jenny, Mads, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of—until the night of Jade’s sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Andrew’s Prep party. The night the golden boys choose Jade as their next target. They picked the wrong girl. Sworn to vengeance, Jade transfers to St. Andrew’s Prep. She plots to destroy each boy, one by one....

Did you know that the first jigsaw puzzles were deconstructed maps of the British Empire created by mapmaker John Spilsbury in the 1760s? Although he called them “dissected maps,” the gist was the same. Puzzle pieces weren’t cut into fancy shapes until 1873 when the jigsaw tool was created. Subsequently, the term “jigsaw puzzle” first appeared around 1909. The world record for the biggest jigsaw puzzle is 551,232 pieces! Sixteen thousand students from the University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), at the Phu Tho Stadium in Ho Chi Minh City, puzzled over it for 17 hours before completing it....

Musing the answer to Kermit’s query, I think there are so many songs about rainbows because rainbows simply make people feel happy. My preschool students love painting rainbows. Families in Brooklyn hung rainbow art in their windows to cheer up their quarantined neighbors. Chic instagram influencers even encourage organizing books, toys, and other household items by rainbow order. If you do not want to commit to reorganizing your house like a rainbow, consider adding a pop of color with these colorful rainbow bookends....

I’ve defined speculative fiction, to the best of my ability, in a previous Book Riot post, but in a nutshell, speculative short stories are short stories that include the fantastic — ranging from harder science fiction and fantasy to hints of the surreal or uncanny. Speculative short fiction is an amazing art form. Many literary magazines publish speculative short fiction, including the The New Yorker, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, FIYAH, khōréō, and an abundance of others....

These young adult books all feature romance and the workplace, whether that’s a job at a food truck or in retail, or an internship, or just work at a family business. Most of these YA workplaces romances feature a relationship between employees (which can be fraught with its own stress and excitement) but a few feature romances between employee and customer! And while my own minimum wage, food and retail days are behind me, these YA workplace romances are enough to make me long for a summer flirtation while working at a food truck....

These journeys are sometimes long, spanning decades of character development and changing editorial staffs. Sometimes the flips are one-offs, contained to a single story or even a single alternate dimension. Either way, these changes are fascinating stories in redemption. They make readers wonder about the former villains intentions, waiting for the con to be revealed. These characters also pose the question: What is a hero? Are heroes defined by their pasts, by the bodies laid in their path?...

Cook at Home Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat This approachable book breaks down the basics of cooking into its four main elements, the eponymous salt, fat, acid, and heat. You learn about how salt enhances the flavor of your food, how fat brings out flavors and betters textures, how acid contrasts and betters other flavors, and how heat transforms food. It is a perfect cookbook for amateur cooks because it teaches you the basics and is more of a cooking “philosophy” text than it is a recipe book....

I’m not gonna lie: it can be hard to find queer books without romances. Novels without romance of any kind are actually a lot rarer than you might think — despite the fact that romance is just one of many human experiences reflected in books. Some of these books do have romantic subplots, but none of them have central romances. In order to qualify for this list, I made sure every book that included a little romance passed this simple test: I imagined the story without the romantic subplot....

Dr. Seuss’s work has been shown to be highly problematic, particularly the stereotyping and dehumanizing of people of color. If you have small children or follow issues in children’s literature, none of this is new to you — or I’m hoping it’s not. If you haven’t been following this issue, this article is a good place to start and brings up some good questions and points to explore. But despite the research and conversations year after year, none of that has stopped countless schools and preschools from making the day and week a Seuss-filled spectacle (and more pointedly, never talking about or acknowledging the problems in his work — if his books are read, let’s have these conversations, too)....

(Give any of these Instagram poets a follow simply by clicking the Follow button above each image.) Adrian Hendryx A photo posted by #adrianhendryx (@adrianhendryx) on Jan 12, 2016 at 7:01pm PST A photo posted by #adrianhendryx (@adrianhendryx) on Feb 13, 2016 at 7:54pm PST Atticus Poetry A photo posted by a t t i cu s (@atticuspoetry) on Jan 10, 2016 at 12:29pm PST Austin Kleon A photo posted by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) on Feb 15, 2016 at 9:32am PST...

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell Laura Dean is Frederica’s dream girl. There’s only one problem: she’s not a very good girlfriend. After some advice from a cryptic medium telling her to “break up with her,” Freddy is more confused than ever. Because Laura Dean keeps coming back—and maybe it’s not just Laura Dean who’s the issue. Being a teenager in love in confusing....

However, this time between toddlerhood and elementary school is perfect for experimentation and exploration when it comes to books. This is prime picture book age; it’s also the perfect time to pick up some early reader books to get your little one interested in reading themselves. Here are some books for 4-year-olds that are challenging and entertaining for little minds who are getting ready for Kindergarten and finding out who they are in this big crazy world....

The Best LGBTQ Science Fiction Books The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers Rosemary Harper jumps at the chance to join the ragtag crew of the Wayfarer. Traveling through space has been her life’s dream, and even though the ship has seen better days, she’s just happy to be along for the ride. When her crew is offered a job to tunnel wormholes through space, however, she soon discovers that her new life is more dangerous than she thought....

This pensive quote lives snugly within the pages of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park as well as my reading journal. Like the petals of a flower, I have preserved this book quote because I found meaning in it. There’s much to be said for the pleasure of pinning down a good book quote or idea. I’d love to say our memories could keep track of them all. As Austen reflects, though, memories can be fickle....

So why not capitalize on this existential fear by bringing into the bookish world? We’ve all seen the library cake that your Grandma shared with you on Facebook, but no one’s expecting to actually check a book out from that library. While there are all kinds of beautiful or adorable book cake designs out there, today I want to highlight the ones that really make you doubt reality. Here are 19 book cakes that will have you questioning if the books on your TBR have been deviously disguised desserts all along....