YA author Pérez offers encouragement and insight into book challenges today, which are about much more than just a book. Offering tips for how to prepare for challenges and amplify student voices, the reader will also find ideas to help marginalized learners still find their way to targeted books.

Catalyst: Another newspaper article ("Ranks of School Librarians Dwindle in HISD, Statewide" in the October 7, 2013, "Houston Chronicle") detailing another decision by a Houston Independent School District (HISD) campus principal to eliminate the librarian (Mellon 2013). In response to this article, Dorcas Hand, an experienced…

The National School Library Standards require school librarians to make equity a value that permeates the entire school library community. Creating displays to celebrate diversity is not enough. We cannot allow ourselves to approach diversity as a "social good," in which isolated programs serve marginalized students without challenging…

We seem to instinctively crave information that confirms our biases. Rather than learning knowable things, we shrink inside ourselves and hunker down with the familiar, comfortable information that feeds our narrative of what we think we know, of how we think the world works. Students do not naturally know how to open up their perspective to other…

If you stopped by and visited the author's school library in Eminence, Kentucky, it would be difficult to predict everything you might see and experience. You might see first-grade students browsing and finding books to check out, a ninth-grade student using a compound miter saw to prepare parts for a project in an engineering class, a fifth-grade…

As the sun rises over the horizon each day, we rarely get the opportunity to consider how the new day contributes to the month that forms part of a season that culminates in the year. A year's progress guides and shapes the development of all growing things. Though not necessarily in a tidy twelve-month cycle, while developing the new standards…

The class visit to check out books has long been a staple of school library programs nationwide. This flexible or scheduled time allows students to take advantage of the library collection and enjoy reading based on their own interests. The library provides the perfect environment for students to self-select books based on their interests, an…

With the changes in school library spaces and school librarians' roles, there has never been a more extraordinary time to be a librarian. However, one thing will never change even in these dynamic times; librarians are still the driving force behind strong reading programs and fostering that love of reading. How do librarians create a culture of…

The author reveals in this article that her action research journey in the land of evidence-based practice was not her own idea. She writes that she was lured by the profession's finest scholars who advocated for reflective dispositions for practitioners to improve their practice and demonstrate the school librarian's critical role in teaching and…

School library programs have measured success by improved test scores. But how do next-generation school libraries demonstrate success as they strive to be centers of innovation and creativity? These libraries offer solutions for school leaders who struggle to restructure existing systems built around traditional silos of learning (subjects and…

School librarians, professional library literature, and scholarly library literature tout the benefits of schools staffed with certified school librarians. However, recent reductions in library funding and elimination of school library positions suggest stakeholders do not connect the school library program to positive student learning outcomes.…

The article is divided into three sections. The main section, "Filtering beyond CIPA: Consequences of and Alternatives to Overfiltering in Schools" (Kristen Batch) describes factors that contribute to the overimplementation of CIPA. Internet filtering is a routine practice in public schools and libraries. The Children's Internet…

Important happenings related to the concept of intellectual freedom (IF) coincide with the annual back-to-school ramp up. This article discusses how to use the summer hiatus to develop learning opportunities related to events such as Banned Books Week (BBW) and Banned Websites Awareness Day (BWAD). The author provides resource information to aid…

The literature in both education and library science since the 1980s has encouraged school librarians to support education change through service to school-wide initiatives. The difference in the literature from the last century to this one is the transition from a reactive stance to a proactive one. The former encouraged librarians to gain…

To be recognized and adopted, the promise and potential of national standards must validate the instructional role of the school librarian and build formative knowledge through authentic process and products. Inquiry is a direct link to those dimensions. Standards that are rigorous and relevant optimize the developing brain's affinity for building…