Publishers Weekly

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See what we published in this week's print issue of 'Publishers Weekly,' including our 10th annual PW Star Watch feature and more. https://buff.ly/4eHMXgJ

Taylor Norman, the executive editor at Holiday House/Neal Porter Books, has been named as Publishers Weekly's 2024 Star Watch Superstar. In a discussion, she shares insights into her role, highlights some of the significant books she’s worked on, and provides a glimpse into an eagerly anticipated project currently in development.

See what we published in this week's print issue of 'Publishers Weekly,' including our annual holiday gift guide and more. https://buff.ly/3TMUq5V

See what we published in this week's print issue of 'Publishers Weekly,' including our guide to this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair and more. https://buff.ly/4eN1WWx

See what we published in this week's print issue of 'Publishers Weekly,' including our preview of this year's New York Comic Con and more. https://buff.ly/3BcJojU

Martha Hickson, media specialist at North Hunterdon High School in Annandale, N.J., was among the vanguard raising a torch for the freedom to read when, in 2019, a superintendent demanded she remove Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home from library shelves. “I refused, and a protracted battle ensued,” Hickson recalls. “I thought that fight was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Little did I know what was to come.” In 2021, administrators again went after Fun Home, this time along with Juno Dawson’s This Book Is Gay, Jonathan Evison’s Lawn Boy, George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. Hickson again defended the books. “All of the books that have been challenged at my school have been associated with LGBTQ+ content,” she says. “The book banners in my area of the world understand that it’s not a good look to go after racially based content, but for whatever reason they have no problem being accused of being homophobic.” #BooksNotBans #SupportLibraries #LibrariesAreForEveryone #BannedBooksWeek #Bookstagram #FreedomToRead

According to AAP's StatShot program, industry sales were up 5.6% in the first half of 2024. Sales of adult titles rose 6.7%, but sales in the children's and young adult segment fell 2.7%.

Today, Brooky Parks works as a business and economics reference librarian at the University of Denver. But from 2019 to 2021, she served at northeastern Colorado’s Erie Community Library. “When I was in grad school, I didn’t want to go into school libraries, because I thought I’d have to deal with more censorship. I decided to go into public libraries. But it’s not safe at all,” Parks says, after the job she says she loved was taken from her by book banners. In Erie, Parks organized an LGBTQ book club for teens and youth anti-racist programming. But when a handful of patrons complained, the High Plains Library District canceled her projects. When she protested, the district fired her. Parks says she was offered $5,000 “to help bridge the gap in between employment,” on the condition she sign an agreement not to sue. Instead, she filed an anti-discrimination lawsuit. With the help of lawyer Iris Halpern, Parks negotiated a $250,000 settlement in September 2023. But while the legal victory made national headlines, the money has done nothing to ease the feelings of loss for being forced out of her job. “It’s hard not to take it personally,” Parks says. “It feels very isolating.” #BooksNotBans #SupportLibraries #LibrariesAreForEveryone #BannedBooksWeek #Bookstagram #FreedomToRead

For Suzette Baker, former head of the Kingsland Library in Llano County, Tex., being a librarian was her dream job. As former military, she found purpose in serving. She loved making fun, quirky book displays. And she deeply understood the importance of the work she was doing. “If you look at a country and you look at their libraries, the freedom that exists in the library reflects the freedom that exists in the country,” she says. “So, if freedom is what we want in our country, then freedom is what we must have in our libraries.” But in 2021, as a politically organized book-banning movement was gaining steam in Texas, Baker found herself on the horns of a dilemma. An employee at the Llano branch of the library had found a copy of the illustrated guidebook?It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health?wrongly shelved in the children’s section…[and] brought it to the attention of local political Groups. As Baker recalls, things “steamrolled” from there. Soon after the incident, local officials began ordering books they unilaterally deemed “pornographic” be removed from the library, the bulk of which were by or about the LGBTQ community. Baker resisted, and spoke out, setting in motion a series of events that would soon lead to her dismissal—a move that would help spark a federal lawsuit by concerned citizens in Llano County, as well as Baker’s own lawsuit against the county for wrongful determination. Today, Baker works as a cashier in a hardware store. “Honestly, I’ve had a lot of difficult days. But it’s worth it. Because this fight is for all of us. As librarians, this what we do, this is what we love,” she says….“This really was my dream job. I’m 57 years old. This is where I was planning to be, doing a job that I absolutely adored, until I retired. Now I’m a cashier at a hardware store, and in another county because I can’t get a job in Llano,” she says. “But, if I can fight back and I can win, it means that every librarian has the power to stand up and say no. It means that every librarian can fight back and win.” #BooksNotBans #SupportLibraries #LibrariesAreForEveryone #BannedBooksWeek #Bookstagram #FreedomToRead