Nonprofit Every Child a Reader is expanding Children’s Book Week in 2017. The event, now in its 98 th  year, focuses on the best in children’s books. Next year’s event, which takes placed May 1-7, includes an update to the book awards, a new website, and the hopes to triple the number of participants from libraries, schools and bookstores. Participants will also be able to vote for where the Children’s and Teen Choice Book Awards will be hosted. The award winners will be announced in conjunction with the ABC Children’s Group/ABFE art auction on May 31 at BookExpo. “We’re going to energize the entire children’s book world this spring, thanks to the enthusiastic support of teachers, parents, librarians, booksellers, authors, illustrators, CBC committees, publishing employees, the media, other literacy groups — and kids and teens! — for this wonderful annual tradition known as Children’s Book Week,” stated  Carl Lennertz , executive director at CBC and Every Child a Reader.  

A trailer has been unveiled for The Circle film adaptation.  TIME  reports that the story for this project comes from  Dave Eggers’  2013 science-fiction novel. The video embedded above offers glimpses of  Tom Hanks   as Eamon Bailey  and  Emma Watson   as Mae Holland . The theatrical release date has been set for April 28, 2017. Here’s more from  USA Today : “The Circle’s game changer: SeeChange cameras, glass eyeballs that fit anywhere and transmit real-time footage wirelessly. Mae steps into the SeeChange world and instantly explodes from entry-level employee to being famous worldwide for sharing her life, fears and ambitions with millions of strangers.” (via  Slash Film )  

A librarian in Illinois discovered that Islamophobia is a problem among some people that have come into her public library branch. While gathering materials for a discussion group called “The Quran: Is It a ‘Good Book’?, library director Karen Danczak Lyons said that she found that texts had been defaced with comments such as,  “lies cover to cover,” and a swastika.  The New York Times  has a scoop: The authorities say there has been a spate of hate crimes targeting libraries, their books or patrons — offenses officials said they had rarely seen before. These crimes coincide with  a recent report by the F.B.I. that attacks against American Muslims surged last year.  

Gregg Schigiel  has signed a deal with Image Comics. In the past, he has worked on the SpongeBob comic series. For this new project, Schigiel intends to create a new children’s comic series entitled Pix. The first volume will be released on February 22. Here’s more from the press release: “Pix is a superhero—but she also believes herself to be a fairy and a princess to boot. And if that weren’t enough for one teen to juggle, in PIX, VOL. 1 she’s got attacking electronics, secret crushes, a magic 8-ball monster, cell service issues, a dragon war, a bad date, worried moms, a furtive frog, and a malevolent monkey, all jockeying for her attention.”  

A.J. Jacobs  has lived an incredibly interesting life. To the delight of his readers, he chronicles his experiments in articles for Esquire magazine and in his funny books which include The Know-it-All, The Year of Living Biblically, My Life as an Experiment, and Drop Dead Healthy. Recently, we spoke Jacobs to discuss  the intricacies of writing , the Global Family Reunion event, and all the experiments he has intends to tackle in the near future. Check out the highlights from our interview below… Q: How did you land your first book deal? A:  I wrote an article for a (now-defunct) magazine called The Nose. It wasn’t even an article. It was a silly little chart about the alleged similarities between  Elvis Presley  and  Jesus Christ  (Jesus walked on water in The Sea of Galilee; Elvis surfed in the movie Blue Hawaii — that kind of thing). For some reason, I was deluded enough to think I could stretch it into a short book. So I sent it to a bunch of editors and one ― a wonderful man name

  Journalist   A.J. Jacobs   plans to host a new podcast called Twice Removed. With   this genealogy-themed project , he will attempt to prove that every person on earth is related to one another in some way. Here’s more from the press release: “In each episode of Twice Removed, A.J. and team dive deep into a guest’s family tree. They build a road map down through that tree to the most interesting people and stories. At the end of that road map is a mystery relative.” Some of the guests who have signed on to appear this season include writer  Dan Savage ,  comedian   Abbi Jacobson , and Food Network star  Ted Allen . Through this interviews, a variety of different topics will be explored such as bootleggers, political scandals, and African revolutions. Gimlet will release the first episode on December 13.

  R.L. Stine   and   Marc Brown   have signed a deal with Scholastic. The two legendary children’s books creators intend to collaborate on a picture book entitled Mary McScary. Here’s more from the press release: “Mary spends her days being scary. She scares her mom, her dad, her pets, and even a balloon! But Mary has met her match when her cousin Harry McScary comes to visit. He’s not afraid of anything, until Mary finds a way to give Harry the scare of his life.” Orchard Books, a Scholastic imprint, has set the release date in September 2017. This project marks the second time that Stine and Brown have worked on a book together. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers published  their first book, The Little Shop of Monsters , back in August 2015. < Previous Article Next Article >

  Chris Jackson   appeared at TEDxNewYork 2016 to give a talk on “what multiculturalism can do for everyone.” We’ve embedded the full presentation in the video above—what do you think? Throughout his editorial career, Jackson has worked with a number of high-profile authors such as  National Book Award winner   Ta-Nehisi Coates ,  comedian   Trevor Noah , and  hip hop icon   Jay Z . We caught up with Jackson at the conference and asked him about his work in publishing multicultural stories. Jackson feels that “it always comes down to two principles: there’s more stories that need to be told and we can always widen our perspectives on the things we know to include more voices. I think every editor in every project can in some way apply some of those principles.” Earlier this year, Random House announced that Jackson would serve as the vice president, publisher, and editor-in-chief of One World. The launch of this new multicultural imprint is scheduled to take place in Fall 2017. In the

One month in, is the  TikTok Book Club  worth the hype? Now one of the commanding forces in adult fiction, BookTok (the book community on TikTok) has  helped authors sell 20 million printed books in 2021, according to NPD BookScan.  So far this year, those sales are up another 50%. Quick to profit from the growth of BookTok, last month TikTok launched a virtual space for the book community to discuss new titles together in the form of a club. The first book to be discussed by the Book Club was Jane Austen’s  Persuasion  which from an outsider’s perspective may be an unusual choice when appealing to a predominantly teenage fanbase. However, like many classic authors on TikTok, Austen has a following on the app under the hashtag #AustenTok, with 20.8 million views. Austen was a safe choice to start with. However, it is refreshing to see that the Book Club is changing gear with September’s book: Bolu Babalola’s new release  Honey and Spice . The club has quite rightly taken the opportunit

  Who is your favorite teacher from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? To shine the spotlight on this group of characters from   J.K. Rowling’s   magical book series, the team at HalloweenCostumes.com has created the “ Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Staff ” infographic. Here’s more from the company’s blog post: “In this infographic, we look at the most important staff members at Hogwarts from September 1991 through May 1998, the years that Harry Potter attended (or should have attended) the school. With a few exceptions, we show the positions these staff members held at the Start-of-Term Feast held on September First each year.” Some of the teachers being featured include  headmaster Albus Dumbledore , deputy headmistress Minerva McGonagall, and  potions professor Severus Snape . We’ve embedded one section from the image below for you to explore further—what do you think?  Click here  to view the full piece. To learn more about the Harry Potter universe, check out the following

Chemical warfare, the bombing of children, accounts of rape, kidnap and torture are not the normal staple of YA fiction. But Zoulfa Katouh’s  As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow , which Bloomsbury YA publishes on 15th September, is much more than a sweet love story set in war-torn Syria. It is also a shocking account of the brutality of the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and will be a revelation to its young teenage target audience. The novel raises interesting freedom of speech questions too. Will its detail of the Syrian revolution and the government’s barbaric actions to stifle dissent prevent it from finding an Arabic publisher given the region’s sensitivities over who is seen to be siding with whom and the attitude to protest of some Arab world governments? Observers who know the countries in question, people who have attended the many impressive book fairs in the region – in Sharjah in the UAE, or in Abu Dhabi and Qatar – say that publishers based in the UAE or Lebanon ar

  Dear Readers, We are sad to report that we are closing the book on GalleyCat. We thank you for your support and readership over the years. Over the past decade, it’s been our mission to keep you informed with news from publishers, authors, booksellers and libraries. We’ve had the pleasure of reading thousands of fantastic books and reviewing many of them along the way. It has been an honor to know so many of the people in this community from authors and book editors to literary agents and book store owners, and the associations supporting every corner of the business. We hope that you’ll continue to support authors, publishers and book stores, who will continue to need your support in 2017 and beyond. Keep reading! Dianna and Maryann