Wendy Shang

So pleased that THE BEST WORST SUMMER OF ESME SUN is a five-star read by @yabooknerd.bsky.social!

Kate Messner's School Librarian Advisory Team With recent shifts in social media, support for libraries, and school budgets, it feels more challenging than ever to connect kids with books they’ll love. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how au...

I have a few openings on my School Librarian Advisory Team for 2026 – if you're interested in taking the occasional survey, getting early copies of new books, & taking a peek behind the scenes of making kids’ books, it might be a good fit for you & your readers! Details: forms.gle/mkA9L5EuvjTu...

Thank you for sharing!

A top staffer to Sen. Tina Smith emailed Sen. Mike Lee’s top staffers on Monday about “how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend”

Full emails below

Trans rights activist Marsha Johnson smiles at the camera while wearing a bright pink outfit with a colorful floral headpiece and gold jewelry.

Trans rights activist Sylvia Rivera, wearing a yellow patterned dress, stands with arms outstretched on a city street during a parade, surrounded by people and trees.

Trans rights activist Ms. Major Griffin-Gracy sits on a car during a parade in a vibrant rainbow gown, smiling warmly as an enthusiastic crowd claps and takes photos. 

Pride honors protest.
We remember Marsha. Sylvia. Miss Major.
We remember that their fight was against police violence, pretrial incarceration, and systemic erasure.
Their legacy calls us to act—still.
Read how Pride and pretrial justice are deeply connected: bit.ly/pride-and-pretrial-2025
#Pride

Thank you!

OP-ED: Rikers Island: a modern-day auction block in the heart of New York In the early 1800s, Richard Riker, a descendant of the family who owned Rikers Island, participated in a kidnapping ring for decades.

🚨 Hot Off the Press! 🚨
Our very own Dr. Kevin Beckford co-authored a powerful Amsterdam News piece exposing Rikers Island’s violent, anti-Black legacy.
📖 bit.ly/rikers-island
✊🏾 Share & amplify!
#EndMassIncarceration #RikersIsland #CriminalJusticeReform

Torkwase Dyson, a Black artist, kneels in a studio, deeply engrossed in her work. She wears a black outfit and gloves, focused on manipulating black pigment using a palette knife from a metal tray, onto a large, dark canvas spread across the floor. In the background, a charcoal-like drawing hangs, contributing to the monochromatic palette and the atmosphere of creative exploration.

In a modern art gallery, five large abstract paintings by Torkwase Dyson with geometric forms and color fields of blues and blacks hang evenly spaced along a white wall. A blurry figure walks through the gallery space studying the artworks. These paintings evoke a visual exploration of space, infrastructure, and the negotiation of space.

A person is walking into a matte-black, semi-circular structure with a rectangular opening/doorway, set in a desolate desert landscape. The structure is positioned in a flat, sandy expanse dotted with sparse desert vegetation. In the background, arid, tan-colored mountains rise to meet a clear, light-blue sky. The play of light and shadow creates a stark contrast between the structure and the surrounding environment. This artwork by Torkwase Dyson explores themes of space, architecture, and the experience of the black body within the landscape.

An outdoor architectural installation by Torkwase Dyson features bold geometric planes, grated sections with diagonal lines, and a central circular element. Set on dark soil atop a green lawn, it contrasts with a traditional stone church and its green spire in the background. The low angle emphasizes the artwork’s scale, highlighting its exploration of space, freedom, and Black spatial liberation.

Celebrating Torkwase Dyson, a visionary artist using abstraction to challenge systemic and physical boundaries. Her geometric forms reimagine space as fluid and free, countering a world built on containment. Dyson’s work reshapes power into justice, offering blueprints for liberation and movement 🖤🎨

@wendyshang.bsky.social @scholastic.bsky.social THE BEST WORST SUMMER OF ESME SUN (6/3/25) is the perfect #MGLit summer read. Summer hanging out at the pool, with some realistic angst. 💙💙💙💙💙

Holy ****

#Trump

Day 18

How To Talk To Your School Community About Reading A "Controversial" Book When I was at NCTE last month, I heard from a shocking number of teachers that their use of one or both of my nonfiction narratives, The 57 Bus and Accountable, was either being challenged by parents ...

This is such an informative and important post from @dashkaslater.bsky.social, the author of ACCOUNTABLE.

How do you prepare your school community for reading a "controversial" book? This MS principal gives a master class in transparency and communication.

www.dashkaslater.com/post/how-to-...

Day 17

Day 16

Day 15

Day 14

Day 13

Day 12

Day 11 (these days are not consecutive, lol)

Day 10

Day 9 (including a day or two over the holidays)

Day 8

Day 7

Day 6

Day 5 of the 20 Day Book Challenge

Day 4 - 20 books that influenced or stayed with me

Day 3

Day 2 of 20 books in 20 days