Penguin Random House has partnered with Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, to launch The Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry, a new creative writing award for poetry for public high school students. The award will recognize a student for an original literary composition in English for poetry with a first-place prize of

This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, a moment to reckon with our past and reimagine our future. To help educators engage with the complex impacts of 9/11 in the classroom, Valarie Kaur—Sikh activist and author of See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love—has created a guide for teaching and learning

  First published in 2008, A Journal for Jordan: A Story of Love and Honor is Dana Canedy’s memoir and a true story of a soldier deployed to Iraq who keeps a journal of love and advice for his infant son. It is soon to be a major motion picture directed by Denzel Washington and

According to a recent study commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and reported by The Guardian, nearly 25% of young adults in America either believe the Holocaust is a myth, think it has been exaggerated, or are not sure. These findings are particularly alarming given that the number of

TIME recently shared its list of the 100 Best YA Books of All Time. This definitive list was curated by a panel of celebrated YA authors, and includes the most compelling, enlightening, and influential young-adult books, all in chronological order beginning in the 1800s.  The list includes over 30 titles from Penguin Random House and

The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Games of the Olympiad, are a major international multi-sport event typically held once every four years. The Games were first held in 1896 in Athens, Greece, and were most recently held in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After a yearlong postponement, the 2021 Summer Olympics are

U.S. News & World Report, which publishes the most widely quoted annual set of rankings for American colleges and universities, recently shared their list of “10 Books to Read Before College.” Describing these books as “assigned texts [that] are regularly used in freshman-level classes and offer students a chance to come together to discuss a

Andy Weir, author of The Martian, Artemis, and Project Hail Mary answers our questions about his latest book, reveals the benefit of writing relatable characters, and shares his feelings about the Fab Four. Abbe Wright: Andy, when I open one of your novels, I know we’re starting with a pretty big problem. In The Martian, we’ve got Mark Watney, who’s

Shiamin Kwa is Associate Professor and Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature at Bryn Mawr College. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical Chinese Literature from Harvard University and her B.A. in English Literature from Dartmouth College. She is the author of Regarding Frames: Thinking with Comics in the Twenty-First Century  (RIT

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the freedom of the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas. The newly freed Black Americans observed Juneteenth as a celebration of freedom and

Contributed by Michelle Kuo, author of Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship Every teacher has likely experienced two emotions: the feeling that you’ve gotten through to a student and the feeling that you’ve let him down. In the first, the classroom is a powerful place of human connection, and the

  Former First Lady Michelle Obama has a special and inspiring message for librarians and educators everywhere, thanking them for the invaluable work they do in guiding our nation’s young people to become critical thinkers, engaged citizens, and empathetic leaders. Mrs. Obama’s memoir, Becoming, is now available as a young readers’ edition and in paperback.