People

Leading our most viewed posts of the week, a deeply personal appreciation by SLJ’s Kimberly Fakih of the Sydney Taylor classic.  Meanwhile, our 2023 profile of Mychal Threets made the rounds, as the much-loved ambassador of libraries departed the Fairfield (CA) Civic Center Library March 1.  

The 2020 Newbery Medalist shares his favorite moments from winning, including a Kwame confusion, and tells the 2024 winner to enjoy the moment but not expect to get a lot of work done.

While librarians, of late, have drawn some attention by mainstream press, the profession has always been central in SLJ's coverage. Of stories driven by school and public librarians, their perspectives and work, four drew the most views in 2023.  

We love our creators of children's and YA books and so do readers. Here are the five most popular stories centering writers whose stories inspired us over the past year. 

The "Wimpy Kid" author headlines SLJ's flagship annual event, featuring sessions on the biggest issues facing school librarianship, from empowerment in the face of book bans, to making the case to stakeholders and engaging the AI revolution.

 In colorful shirts and with a contagious excitement about the library, the supervising librarian of the Fairfield Civic Center branch of the Solano County (CA) Library system posts about the little library moments that can have a big impact. 

On the occasion of receiving the 2023 Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his significant and lasting contribution to writing for teens, Jason Reynolds took the reins on SLJ's Instagram. Here's the full AMA, your feel-good watch of the day.

Julie Stivers’s library at Mount Vernon Middle School in Raleigh, NC, empowers academic-recovery students to “be brave together.”

Modernizing the library and creating a collection to match her community's needs has been key for Quilantan-Garza at Jaime Escalante Middle School in Pharr, TX, where most students are predominantly Spanish-speaking.