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It’s hard to keep up with all the latest news and discussions about children’s books and publishing, so I’m helping out by doing it for you. Here are a few articles that caught my attention recently, from more “Best of 2024” lists to the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and America’s literacy crisis.
2024 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
Shifa Saltagi Safadi wins the 2024 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for Kareem Between! This novel-in-verse chronicles a tense moment in tween Kareem’s life as he longs to join the football team amid bullying, navigates his Muslim identity in a primarily non-Muslim school, and learns how to be an activist despite being scared when his mother and grandparents are stranded in Syria after Trump’s Muslim ban. I loved this book, and couldn’t be happier for the author. Her speech was wonderful.
Is There Actually a Literacy Crisis?
While I enjoy reading updates about children’s literacy studies and ways to address issues in children’s literacy, sometimes it feels a bit over dramatic and apocalyptic. Go back to any generation and there are lots of opinion articles about how we’re doomed because kids hate reading nowadays. In this Vox article, journalist Anna North describes how reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress have remained pretty steady since the tests were introduced in 1969, with only a slight COVID-pandemic dip. What’s different is that more kids report not reading for pleasure. Kids also score worse on information literacy than they used to.
I think the key to this and all similar studies is a single sentence in the article about how low-income and underserved kids fare far worse. Hmm. You mean kids who are hungry and likely stressed out read for fun less than others? Maybe if we raised the quality of life for children — with higher minimum wages, better access to food, clothes, and shelter, access to high-quality childcare and healthcare — reading for pleasure might go up. As anyone who has lived in poverty knows, the combination of lack of time, money, and excess stress can make it extremely difficult to read. Welcome to my TED Talk; this article actually does not address any of that, though it’s still worth reading!
More “Best of 2024” Children’s Book Lists
Here are some more “Best of 2024” children’s book lists! First up is from The Strategist. I quite like this list, though, strangely, it includes books not published in 2024, like Dim Sum Palace and The Barnabus Project. It’s, in fact, a very confusing list in that respect, though unlikely to bother anyone uninvolved in children’s book publishing! I appreciate that there are some under-the-radar books on here. Most I’ve read and enjoyed, like The Yellow Bus, All About U.S., and The Queen of Ocean Parkway, but there are a few I need to check out!
