ALA announces 2024 Youth Media Award winners
(Jan 22 2024)
The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the top books, digital media, video and audio books for children and young adults – including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery and Printz awards.
David Baldacci Selected as the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion.
(Jan 19 2024)
Author and philanthropist David Baldacci has been selected as the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion. This annual commendation recognizes a lifetime of devoted literary advocacy and a commitment to inspiring new generations of readers and writers.
“David Baldacci, whose novels have captivated millions of readers worldwide, has been a paragon of service to the literary community,” said Executive Director Gwydion Suilebhan. “PEN/Faulkner is dedicated to the idea that fiction creates empathy within and among communities and advances civil discourse, and Baldacci’s devoted philanthropic work in promoting literacy has ensured that countless Americans have access to those possibilities.”
A Big Win in the Texas Book Rating Law Case
(Jan 19 2024)
In a major victory for freedom to read advocates, the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals on January 17 upheld a lower court decision to block key provisions of HB 900, Texas’s controversial book rating law, finding that the law likely violated First Amendment protections against compelled speech.
In an unequivocal 36-page decision, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit—viewed by many as the most conservative court in the nation—easily dispatched with the state’s key legal arguments (that the plaintiffs lacked standing, that the case was not ripe, and that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by sovereign immunity) and made it only to the first of the plaintiffs’ multiple constitutional claims—that the mandatory book ratings at the heart of the law represent compelled speech.