Author’s Corner: Terry LaBan

By Abby Ballas, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

“If you have to be a cartoonist, you’ll be a cartoonist,” as was the case for Terry LaBan, who discovered his calling in grade school as “the kid who could draw.” Since then, LaBan has led a successful cartooning career, starting with his work at Ann Arbor News where he composed political cartoons. He has also published works with notable comics publishers such as Fantagraphics, Dark Horse and DC Vertigo, but his longest position was with Egmont, with whom he wrote Donald Duck comics for 14 years for Europe’s substantial Donald Duck fanbase. LaBan spent an even longer period working with his wife, Patty LaBan, on Edge City, a comic centered around a Jewish family modeled after the LaBans. Terry LaBan’s most recent work, Mendel the Mess-Up, reflects his intrigue with historical societies while paying homage to his Jewish ancestry. Mendel the Mess-Up is a wholesome and humorous middle-grade graphic novel featuring a 12-year-old Jewish boy prone to accidentally wreaking havoc within his shtetl (a little Jewish village located in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust). Continue reading →

Holding Space for Story, Reflection and Voice

By Junko Sakoi, Tucson Unified School District, Multicultural Curriculum Integration Coordinator

Censorship remains a significant issue affecting schools across the United States, with ongoing debates over educational content, children’s rights and academic freedom. In 2024, the American Library Association (ALA) documented 821 attempts to censor library materials and services, involving 2,452 titles. While this represents a decrease from 2023’s record of 1,247 challenges and 4,240 titles, the numbers remain significantly elevated compared to pre-2020 levels, which averaged 270 titles challenged annually between 2001 and 2020.

The ALA attributes the 2024 decline to factors such as underreporting, often linked to concerns about retaliation and controversy. In addition, evolving state legislation has influenced the availability of books featuring LGBTQIA+ characters, characters of color and themes related to race and racism. Continue reading →

WOW Recommends: Oasis

In this post-apocalyptic graphic novel, JieJie and her little brother DiDi make their way through a desolate desert landscape to reach an isolated telephone booth, their only contact with their mother who works tirelessly in a factory in the domed city of Oasis.

Their days are filled with surviving sandstorms and scavenging for food and water until they find an obsolete robot abandoned in a junkyard. They piece the robot together and activate its mother mode, gradually developing a loving relationship. When their worried mother travels to visit them in the desert, she initially rejects the robot mother. Her children persuade her that they can form a family and create a future together, rejecting the technological tyranny of Oasis. Continue reading →

A Book for Pondering and Perspective-Taking: Border Patrol by Joseph Bruchac

By Holly Johnson, Emeritus Professor, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH

Almost every book allows for a perspective that may be different from the reader’s, and many books give readers something to ponder, but books that afford both pondering and perspective-taking are a bit more rare. Joseph Bruchac’s new book, Border Patrol (2025), is one such book. It brings to life both current issues and historical context, which had me contemplating just how much of U.S. history might need rethinking.

Lily, a middle grade Mohawk girl, has a lot to say in respect to border issues both current and historical. The book shares Lily’s thinking through a series of verses that can be read individually—with openings for much discussion—or in a series of verses that give readers numerous ways to contemplate another perspective while also pondering their own actions if they found themselves in similar situations or confronted with someone like Lily. Continue reading →

WOW Dozen: Taking Action for the Earth

By Susan Corapi, Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL & Annette Y. Goldsmith, Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Los Angeles, CA

With the recent Presidential decision to withdraw from the United Nations Paris Agreement that supports changes for restoring health to the climate, grassroots action becomes more vital than ever. There has been an uptick in publishing books that highlight environmental concerns and kids taking action to address local issues that impact the health of nature and the planet. This set of books inspires, informs and empowers young readers by telling how youth from around the world have creatively recycled waste (Flipflopi), invented ways to minimize or reuse waste (The Last Straw) and taken a stand to prevent further damage to the environment (Autumn Peltier). Earth day is April 22, 2025–a great day to read one of these books! Continue reading →

WOW Recommends: Buffalo Dreamer

Buffalo Dreamer by Violet Duncan is a middle grade novel that confronts the painful and traumatic history of the Indigenous residential school system. Duncan, a member of the Plains Cree and Taino from Kehewin Cree Nation, addresses not only the horrors of the past, but also the resilience and strength of Indigenous communities who persevered through this painful history and found ways to maintain both their culture and identity. Sharing this history is very personal to Duncan whose father, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all survivors of the residential school system, Sixties Scoop and Indian Day Schools. Duncan states that she too is a survivor. Continue reading →

Author’s Corner: Andrea Rogers

By Abby Ballas, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

The future Dr. Andrea Rogers is in the process of earning her PhD in English. Despite this, the Cherokee writer and former English and art teacher is already an established and award-winning author of children’s and young adult books. In 2024 alone, she published two books: Chooch Helped, which won a Caldecott Medal for its illustrations, and the sci-fi YA novel The Art Thieves. Rogers is a versatile author; her stories vary in genre from fantasy to historical fiction to science fiction and futurism. Using this versatility, she integrates her knowledge of subjects and issues, such as a range of social justice themes and her expertise in discussing different styles of art.

The Art of The Art Thieves

As would be expected in a book titled The Art Thieves, Rogers demonstrates her passion for the fine arts, music and even other literary works through the analytical eyes of her teenage protagonist, Stevie. The primary piece Rogers focuses on in the book is Martin Puryear’s “Ladder for Booker T. Washington.” The piece “manifests worlds” because the viewer brings her own ideas into how she understands it, thereby becoming somewhat of an artist herself. The same rule applies to literature, including to Rogers’ own book. She says, “The book you read is not going to be the same book I read.” Continue reading →

Expand Our Use of Global Books for the Elementary Classroom

By Jeanne Gilliam Fain, Lipscomb University, Nashville, TN

One line of inquiry I grapple with daily is how to think about inserting global books into elementary classrooms with scripted curriculum. When I started this work, I immediately assumed the books from the scripted curriculum were low quality books. I then took the opportunity to really study the books and discovered that these books are award-winning global titles many of us know and love deeply such as Grandfather’s Journey (Say, 1994), Coming to America: The Story of Immigration (Maestro, 1996), Tea with Milk (Say, 2009), Keeping Quilt (Polacco, 1988) and Family Picture (Carmen Lomas Garza, 2005). I have the personal bias of embracing current books with enthusiasm and often letting go of books that age well. One of the real problems that we (I work with many wonderful teachers in Nashville) encounter is that many of the books in the curriculum are around 30 years old. Today, although there is still work to do with inclusivity in children’s literature publishing, there are so many new voices and perspectives that were missing thirty years ago. Continue reading →

WOW Recommends: Looking for Smoke

Looking for Smoke is K.A. Cobell’s debut novel for young adults. A member of the Blackfeet nation, Cobell takes on the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) that haunt the Indigenous nations within the western USA. As Geraldine, the grandmother of one of the missing/murdered notes, “If you want to get away with murder, do it on an Indian reservation” (p, 39). Told through the perspective of four teens, the novel focuses on the teen’s reactions to one missing girl and another murdered girl who they knew intimately as either a friend or relative. In connection to the story of the missing or murdered young women, the novel includes issues of identity, drug-usage, poverty, and family dynamics that are part of these young people’s lives. It also addresses the pride of community and tradition that allow for a well-rounded sense of people and place. Continue reading →

WOW Dozen: The Magic of Reading, Libraries and Stories

By Katie B. Loomis, Texas Woman’s University

Picturebooks help readers explore the power of stories—inspiring, comforting, educating and bringing people together. This WOW Dozen shares a common theme: a deep love for books, libraries and the magic of reading. Many of them highlight the role of libraries and librarians in fostering a love of reading; others focus on the personal and transformative experiences that books can offer individuals—whether it’s a child discovering the joy of storytelling, a librarian bringing hope to a war-torn town or a book itself traveling through many hands and lives. Continue reading →

Worlds of Words

International Collection of Children’s and Adolescent Literature

Author: wowstudent