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Welcome to Check Your Shelf. My husband and I are watching a baseball game right now, and started arguing about whether or not Sandstorm by Darude is a jam. This is what quarantine has turned us into. (Also it is 100% a legitimate jam, and I will stand by that fact forever.)
So. Where were we. Libraries? Let’s do it.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
- (TW: patron violence) A Daytona Beach children’s librarian was seriously injured in an unprovoked attack by a patron. (The headline is really frightening, just as a fair warning.)
- “I literally weep:” Anguish as New Zealand’s National Library culls 600,000 international books to make room for additional New Zealand and Maori literature. (I think they could have just rephrased the headline as “People freak out over library needing to weed its collection.”)
Cool Library Updates
- Capital Area District Libraries (MI) wants its readers to get woke.
- How an Akron-Summit Public Library (OH) card is also becomng a free bus pass.
- Library services turn to the great outdoors.
- The Waterloo Public Library (ONT) launches a button program to help show the staff’s faces behind their masks.
- 10 people share why they love their library cards.
Worth Reading
- School librarians can save democracy.
- The pandemic is transforming how Americans use public places.
Book Adaptations in the News
- Warcross by Marie Lu is going to be made into a TV series.
- HBO Max is developing a Westing Game series adaptation.
- Fair Warning by Michael Connelly will be adapted for film.
- Dopesick is being turned into a TV series.
- Netflix is turning Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicles series into their own feature length movies.
- The Walking Dead will conclude in 2022.
- Trailer for Dune.
Books & Authors in the News
- Bob Woodward defends his decision to not report Trump’s coronavirus revelations sooner.
- The DOJ is reportedly pursuing criminal charges against John Bolton’s memoir.
- A Signal Mountain (TN) teacher removes two books featuring Black teenage protagonists from the required reading list, citing concerns about mature content. The books are Monster by Walter Dean Myers and All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. However, some parents voiced concerns about the books being removed.
- After a parent complained about the book Ron’s Big Mission being read to their second grader’s class, the Rockwood School District (MO) decided to read the book to the entire school. The book tells the story of Ron McNair, the only Black member of the 1986 Challenger crew.
- Some parents of Clark County (NV) School District high schoolers are upset about a 10th grade honors English reading list that included the graphic memoir, Fun Home.
- (TW: transphobia, transgender stereotypes) JK Rowling’s latest Robert Galbraith novel features a serial killer who sometimes dresses as a woman to get close to his victims, sparking a lot of criticism after her increasingly inflammatory and transphobic public statements over the last few months.
- The feminist book I Hate Men sells out in France after government officials attempted to ban it.
- Harper Collins is suing Lindsay Lohan for collecting a $365K advance but never writing a book.
Numbers & Trends
- Hachette releases its own diversity report.
Award News
- The 2020 Booker Prize shortlist is its most diverse yet.
- Walter Mosely will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Foundation.
- The longlists are rolling out for the National Book Awards: first up is the award for Young People’s Literature.
- Maggie O’Farrell wins the UK Women’s Prize for Fiction for Hamnet.
- The American Book Awards winners have been announced.
- Finalists for the Kirkus Prize have been announced.
Pop Cultured
- Candyman’s release date gets pushed back to 2021, while Wonder Woman 1985 gets pushed back to Christmas Day.
- Here’s the official trailer for season 2 of The Mandalorian.
- Celebrate Star Wars Reads this October.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
- Why Goodreads is bad for books. Thoughts?
- Author Ann Cleeves funds a bibliotherapy service to help people heal with books.
On the Riot
- Do you need a library science degree to work in a library? And on a related note, how this reader got over their MLS.
- Searching for Little Free Libraries as a way to say goodbye.
- 8 moms on building personal libraries for kids.
- Why this reader broke up with their TBR during the pandemic.
It’s the weekend again, and I’ll see you all next week.
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter. Currently reading Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero.