Books & Resources

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Grow Your Book Stack at the 2026 Tucson Festival of Books

By Kathy G. Short, University of Tucson, Tucson, AZ

A group of Indigenous people meet up and exchange frybread.The authors and illustrators who create children’s and young adult books love connecting with readers and telling the stories behind their books. The Tucson Festival of Books is an exciting opportunity to meet authors of old favorites and grow a stack of new books and emerging authors to follow. The festival has 325 authors across multiple genres and 135,000 attendees. 65 of those authors are picturebook author/illustrators, middle grade authors, graphic novel creators and young adult authors who share in 100 sessions. Many sessions are in rooms that seat 40-50 people to allow for more intimate interactions with authors, instead of only large auditoriums. This WOW Currents highlights the sessions and some of the authors who are coming this March. Go to the festival website for a full list of authors and sessions for the entire festival. A list of the children/teen authors and illustrators can be found here. Continue reading →

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The Partition: 1947, Part 1

By Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

A young girl holds a camera and smiles. Behind her is her father and his family to the left, and her mother and her family to the right. Yellow and orange flowers fills the space between them.Mass movements of large groups of people from one global region to another is not new, but there are certain instances that are etched in the memory of people. August of 1947 was a pivotal point in people’s lives who existed in that certain region and era, i.e., India. It was an impact that touched colonial global relations. Its history needs to be explored to understand the context and content of the group of books being explored in this blog. Continue reading →

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The Importance of Coming Home: A Hopi Resistance Story

By Celeste Trimble, St. Martin’s University, Lacey, WA

A young boy in jeans and a dress shirt stands on a road leading to a boarding school. Two adults in traditional Hopi dress stand in front of him.Children’s literature with a focus on the Hopi Tribe has almost exclusively been written by non-Indigenous people both in past and contemporary publishing. The romanticization of Hopi ways of life has inspired many books about the tribe from outsiders’ perspectives, yet there are increasing examples of contemporary children’s literature by Hopi creators that can be used as a counterstory to outsider perspectives. Coming Home: A Hopi Resistance Story by Mavasta Honyouti (Hopi), published November 5, 2024 by Levine Querido, stands out as an exceptional informational text from a Hopi perspective created for young readers. Continue reading →

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Invest In Youth as Readers 2025 Final Update – We Did It!

Over the summer, a group of young readers met in Worlds of Words for a focus group to better understand their needs as readers. They expressed a desire for more social connection. This connection certainly happens between peers in the program, and it also is a function of a wider community who connects in digital spaces like their Instagram or podcast feeds.

Middle schooler smiles next to an adult holding a clipboard

A Middle School Reading Ambassador shares her sketch with author and illustrator, Jose Pimienta, at a cartooning workshop run by the artist. Pimienta flew to Tucson for the workshop and provided special edition books to participants who bravely shared their work.

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Promoting Global Literacy with Manga Inside and Outside the Classroom

By Aika Adamson, Worlds of Words, Tucson, AZ

Two high school boys, one with orange hair and one with black hair, jump across the cover.Manga, a popular form of graphic novels and comics from Japan, has seen a boom in popularity following the pandemic in 2020. In a time where literacy rates are falling slightly for students across the United States, as reported in the Nation’s Report Card for 2022, and fewer people in all age-ranges are reading for pleasure (Iyengar, 2024), encouraging literacy among children and teenagers is more important than ever. Recent publishing trends have shown that children of all ages are reading more comics, graphic novels and manga annually. Graphic novels have seen a 90% jump in popularity in school libraries, with manga comprising 43% of high school graphic novel purchases, according to the School Library Journal’s 2023 survey.

With such a rise in popularity for manga, more and more middle and high school-aged readers can engage in international stories that have been translated for U.S.-based audiences. Manga tend to be published in long series, with chapters coming out weekly or monthly in Japanese magazines such as Weekly Shounen Jump, Ultra Jump, Hana to Yume or Be Love. Once a series reaches a certain number of chapters, provided the manga is popular enough, those chapters can be collected into volumes that are translated and distributed overseas. Continue reading →

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2025 Trends in K-12 Global Literature

By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

A young Black boy draws on a large paper taped to a wall.Each year, we report the annual trends in global literature for young people after updating the annual global recommended reading lists. These lists consist of books published and/or distributed in the U.S. between July 2024 and July 2025. What is interesting this year is that the major trend is the lack of dominant trends in themes, topics, genres and countries.

The updated K-12 global recommended reading lists are published on the Worlds of Words website, organized by grade level bands, K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-10 and 11-12, with separate fiction and nonfiction lists. The lists are organized around broad themes, including strength through relationships, forced journeys, taking action, locating self in the world, adventures and mysteries and mythological quests. Books that remain in print are kept on the lists each year, while new books from 2024 and 2025 are added. Continue reading →

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Back to School: Essential Read Alouds for Human-to-Human Connection and Empathy

By Angelica Serrano, Tucson Unified School District, Tucson, AZ

The start of a new school year is a time of excitement, anticipation and a whirlwind of emotions—for both students and teachers. The classroom is organized, stocked with brand-new school supplies and decorated with care. A clean slate if you will.

But beyond the bulletin boards and labeled bins is the heart of it all: a brand-new community of learners. Each student walks through the door carrying their own story—shaped by culture, family, experiences, dreams and so much more.

As educators, one of the most important things we can do in these early days is to begin building authentic, meaningful relationships with all students. We know that before diving into routines, or curriculum, we must first create a space for connection. After all, we are first and foremost engaging with human beings. It’s in these early interactions—learning how to pronounce each name correctly, noticing who hangs back, who’s eager, who’s unsure—that we begin laying the groundwork for a year of learning, growing and connecting with each other. Continue reading →

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

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

A hand coming out of the ground reaches for tree roots.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 →

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Expand Our Use of Global Books for the Elementary Classroom

By Jeanne Gilliam Fain, Lipscomb University, Nashville, TN

A young girl sits in the backseat of a blue car and looks behind her. Butterflies fill the pink sky behind the car.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 →

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Come to the Tucson Festival of Books on March 15-16, 2025

By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

A young boy pours water into a overflowing vase from a watering can. He stands on a stool back to back with his big sister standing behind him wit her arms crossed.A festival is a great place to meet authors who have popular appeal, authors who are critically acclaimed, and new emerging authors in sessions that offer laughter and thoughtful discussions of critical issues. The Tucson Festival of Books has over 300 authors across multiple genres and 130,000 attendees. 65 of those authors are picturebook author/illustrators, middle grade authors, graphic novel creators, and young adult authors, who present over 100 sessions. Many of the sessions are in rooms that seat 40-50 people to allow for more intimate interactions with authors, instead of only large auditoriums where authors are at a distance. This WOW Currents highlights the sessions and some of the authors who are coming this March. Go to the festival website for a full list of authors and sessions for the entire festival. A list of the children/teen authors and illustrators can be found here. Continue reading →