The five young adult "Honor List" books of 2023 are all visual texts. These award-winning books offer tremendous stories in both pictures and words in the genres of realistic fiction, memoir, and historical nonfiction.

This manuscript explores the trends of the American Library Association's (ALA's) Rainbow Book List Top Ten Titles for Young Readers for 2023. It provides an overview of the titles and curricular connections. The authors discuss how the 2023 Rainbow Book List offers a diversity of genres and topics and also delves deeply into portrayals of queer…

Acclaimed children's books in the United States (U.S.) may be utilized as resources to instruct global issues. As children's literature reflects social context and values, acclaimed books may provide curricular materials for those within the U.S. and to international audiences. Stakeholders, including librarians, teachers, national industry…

Children's literature can serve as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. They are mirrors for marginalized groups to see themselves represented, windows for dominant cultures to learn about marginalized groups, and sliding glass doors to develop empathy. In this study, I examined Middle East Picture Book Award to address what books are…

Teachers of beginning readers have choices in the books they select. A careful look at the features of books provides an informed basis for choosing books that engage young readers. In this article we share insights from a comparative content analysis of leveled readers and Geisel award books that can motivate children to read and prepare them for…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Opportunity." Contents include: (1) Students Deserve to Read Diverse Books --…

Celebrating books published in 2023, now finishing its fifth award cycle, the Whippoorwill Award continues to recognize quality rural literature for young people. Each year, the award committee selects books that portray and honor the complex experiences of rural culture and communities. The award serves to help highlight the diversity of rurality…

Books shape how children learn about society and social norms, in part through the representation of different characters. To better understand the messages children encounter in books, we introduce new artificial intelligence methods for systematically converting images into data. We apply these image tools, along with established text analysis…

In the realm of modern children's literature, biographies of women showcase lives of exceptional talent, perseverance, civic engagement, and more: lives meant to inspire young readers. Since its inception in 2001, the Robert Sibert Informational Book Medal and Honor award has included a biography (or two) every year, with the exception of 2004 and…

Integrating children's literature that represents diverse populations into the classroom is a key part of a culturally relevant pedagogy. Several benefits emerge when children read culturally relevant books. This research focused on the representation of Black males as characters and creators of Caldecott books through a critical multicultural…

Children's literature in the Arabic language has seen an impressive boom in the last decade both in quantity and quality. Arabic children's literature awards have also increased in number and competitiveness. However, children's literature in the Arabic language continues to be criticised for not being appealing to children, due to its didactic…

This paper shares results from a critical content analysis of Newbery-winning titles from 1922-2019 for representations of race/ethnicity, gender, and disability. Each title was coded for the inclusion and representation of race/ethnicity, gender, and disability at both the book and main character levels. Lenses of critical race, gender schema,…

The present study examined the representation of authors, illustrators, and characters of color in books for young children (6 years old and under) that (1) have won awards, (2) were purchased most often, and (3) were borrowed most often from libraries in the Netherlands from 2009 to 2018. Factors influencing the prominence of characters were…

The authors conducted a qualitative content analysis of the 400 National Science Teachers Association Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 from 2010-2017 selected for their instructional usefulness in science classrooms. The authors examined these expert-recommended science trade books to better understand their design and to identify…

Primary teachers often struggle to find high quality literature for use with their first-grade students. Therefore, a list of award winning books was evaluated for characteristics that lend themselves to teaching reading comprehension strategies and literary elements. The Golden Kite Award, an annual award which provides a grant to the winning…