A third of children's books now 'feature a racially minoritised character', up from 4% in 2017, but direction of travel reversed in picturebooks and non-fiction
Melissa Taylor is a former teacher and literacy trainer as well as a mother of two, blogger, and children's book expert. She created and writes the popular blog Imagination Soup. She is also a contributor for publications such as Adobe Education, Brightly, Storey Publishing, and Parenting. Read more
CHICAGO (AP) - As the new school year swings into gear, some students carry heavier worries than keeping up with homework: Demand has been growing steadily for children's books that address traumatic events such as school shootings. Read more
Ryan was four years old when he started unboxing toys on camera in 2015. A few years later-assisted by his mother, who left her job as a high school teacher to work with him full time-he was YouTube's highest-earning star, of any age. He made a record-breaking $29.5 million in 2020, releasing daily videos that blur the line between entertainment and commerce. Read more
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers
'Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums?"'