What a surprise to see CrazyQuiltEdi mentioned in School Library Journal! Thanks for the recognition!

The Ignite Session videos are up! Imagine being alloted 20 PowerPoint slides that changed every 15 seconds to tell your story. Angie Manfredi presented “20 Kids/Teens Titles to Diversify Your Collection Today”. My session was “The Kids Are Not All White.” (these links will not work on iPads or iPhones)

Don’t miss Nikki Grimes’ Five Question Interview in HornBook.

Lyn Miller Lachmann blogs at Pirate Tree, a blog that focuses on social justice. She recentl wrote a post for Diversity in Kidlit about how humor is written that involves young people with autism.

Respect extends to when one of us tells you something is not funny. Do your homework. If you’re not on the spectrum, don’t assume you know our perspective because you have a niece, a nephew, or even a child on the spectrum. Get several people on the spectrum to read your work and point out potential problems. And when someone identifies a problem, don’t argue. Listen.

Celebrate National Library Week! Libraries across the country are planning events this week to celebrate another year of service to our communities. You know we don’t just wear buns and check out books any more. Nope!

Amy Cheney doesn’t just work diligently to find books her incarcerated teens will read. She is an advocate for them!

Meg Medina doesn’t just gather information to improve the literacy of teens in her school; she writes to tell their story.

K.C. Boyd does more than most librarians to keep urban lit in her school, but she also fights to keep her school library open another year.

Sarah Hannah Gómez doesn’t just love reading YA with her teens; she makes sure diversity is address on the bookshelf and in the workplace.

Librarians I’ve met from all over the country hustle to get books their budgets cannot buy, put their careers on the line because their patrons need/want LGBTQ. Librarians are innovators who are finding ways to publish books written by their teen patrons, teach them financial literacy or how to fill out a job application.

There are the dynamic young ones coming up like Sujei Lugo and Evelyn Alford.

Satia Orange. Nancy Tolson. Pura Belpré. Kathleen de la Peña McCook.

Debbie Reese. Need I say more?

We’ve got a lot to celebrate, don’t we?