When author Bruce Handy's son was young, he loved and lost an orange balloon. He and illustrator Julie Kwon talk about a child's singular devotion to a lost object in their nearly wordless kids' book.

The ALA says 4,235 titles were challenged at U.S. libraries — the second-highest year on record. Forty percent of the challenged works involved LGBTQ+ subjects or the experiences of people of color.

The annual Whiting Award for Emerging Writers comes with $50,000 to support each winner's work. It's one of the largest prizes granted to promising new authors.

The shortlisted titles include novels and novellas from authors and translators spanning four continents, with stories that range from Japanese-controlled 1930s Taiwan to the streets of Tehran in 1979.

In The One About the Blackbird, a young boy learns to play guitar from his grandfather. And there's one song in particular that they love…

The best books for children and young adults were awarded the country's top honors by the American Library Association on Monday.

Baker & Taylor is one of very few companies that handle book distribution for libraries — getting books from publishers into borrowers hands. But a few months ago, the company abruptly announced it was shutting down.

All of the top 10 books borrowed through the public library app Libby were written by women. And Kristin Hannah's The Women was the top checkout in many library systems around the country.

After his mom died, Fry Bread author Kevin Maillard found himself wondering, "but where did she go?" So he wrote about it. His new kids' book is And They Walk On, illustrated by Rafael López.

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Professor Mahmood Mamdani about his new book, "Slow Poison." The book is a firsthand report on the tragic unraveling of Uganda's struggle for independence.

The author, whose real name was Madeleine Sophie Wickham, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in late 2022.

Big Ma dashes off commands, pots clang, aunts and uncles shoot the breeze, little ones beg to lick the bowl, ham and candied yam. Family Feast! is about food, family and love.

David Szalay uses spare and sparse language to follow one Hungarian-British man from his teen years through middle age. The prestigious prize honors the best English-language novels published in the U.K.

Washington, D.C.'s vending machine LitBox distributes books, with a serving of hope as local writers struggle with arts funding cuts.

This week's new titles include memoir, comics journalism and speculative fiction, horror and humor. Susan Orlean tells her own story in Joyride, and Pulitzer-winner Adam Johnson has a new novel.