As the year draws to a close, our kids' books columnist Juanita Giles looks back at some of the books that helped her family get through 2020 — and ahead to some exciting titles for next year.
Lopez — who won a National Book Award in 1986 for Arctic Dreams — wrote about his travels to far places. But his writings aren't just travelogues, they remind us of how precious life on Earth is.
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Laurence Hyman, son of Shirley Jackson, about his mother's recently discovered short story which was recently published in The Strand Magazine.
Las Musas, the Muses, is a group of Latina writers who held their first LatinX KidLit Book Festival to celebrate authors, illustrators and books by and about LatinX people.
The beloved local chain, founded in 1971, has had a rough year, including severe revenue losses during the pandemic. Its new owners are led by two Denver natives and self-described high school rivals.
People looking for holiday gift ideas have a resource: the NPR Book Concierge. The interactive book finder has hundreds of titles selected by NPR critics and staff.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to literary agent Laura Zats about ViacomCBS' decision to sell its publishing arm Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House in a $2 billion deal.
Jordan Scott is a poet, a master of words, and a stutterer. His new kids' book, gorgeously illustrated by Sydney Smith, chronicles his childhood journey towards coming to terms with his stutter.
The third volume in Kuang's Poppy War series is out now. She grounded the story in history, both her own and China's; it follows a passionate, ruthless young woman who becomes a military leader.
The book is a mystery of sorts, set at an upscale North Carolina resort during World War II. Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle teaches at a high school with a student population that's 30% Native American.
This year's National Book Awards — announced in a first-ever virtual streaming ceremony — went mostly to writers of color, as the foundation that gives the prizes vowed to be more inclusive.
Cain's Jawbone is a murder mystery and its 100 pages are printed out of order. To make sense of the story, the reader must correctly re-arrange the pages. There are 32 million combinations.
Aspen Words — part of the Aspen Institute — has announced the longlist for this year's Aspen Words Literary Prize. The $35,000 award recognizes fiction that "illuminates a vital contemporary issue."
Agatha Christie published her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 100 years ago this month. Popular on the page, screen and stage, she continues to be the bestselling novelist of all time.
Mike Curato's new young adult graphic novel Flamer follows a teenager struggling with self-hate and all the different parts of his identity — being a Catholic, a Boy Scout, and being gay.
Jillian Cantor's new YA novel lifts some of the elements of Jane Austen's classic — like character names — wholesale. But you'll enjoy it more if you don't expect the plot to follow exactly.
American poet Louise Glück won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Also a Pulitzer Prize winner, she becomes the 16th woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to U.S. poet Louise Glück "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."
Finalists for the National Book Award were announced today in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literature in translation, and young people's literature. Winners are announced Nov. 18.
Renowned ballerina Misty Copeland's new kids' book Bunheads draws on her own childhood experiences — if your kids love dance, it's just the thing to keep them going until classes come back.
The move signals the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation surrounding the publication of The Room Where It Happened after an unsuccessful effort to block it from being published.
A few years ago, Thomas Harding wrote a memoir centered on what became of his great-grandparents' German house. Now he's made it into a children's book about belonging, with the home his protagonist.
Freeman Vines is an African American luthier who creates what have been called "contemporary art sculptures hidden as guitars" out of old wood, some of it from a tree used for a lynching.