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Since the second world war, changing ideas about how children should behave have made us fear independent and competent children.
The past decade has seen a flurry of young adult fiction written from a queer perspective.
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A scholar of queer literature takes a closer look at five books that are pushing the envelope on society’s understanding of LGBTQ life.
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Books that will bring the beauty of Derbyshire’s rolling hills alive.
In an age of distraction, the desire to read faster and more efficiently is understandable.
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The claims made by the creators of the app – which highlights parts of words to supposedly enhance users’ reading abilities – are dubious.
An online audience is reading the vampire novel for the first time, en masse.
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A newsletter sends out chronological snippets from the 125-year-old novel ‘Dracula.’ Fans on the internet go wild.
The Congo Basin’s rainforests in central Africa are sometimes called Earth’s second lungs (after the Amazon) because of its ability to store carbon.
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Literary texts are useful for environmental communication and can deal with the complexity of climate change.
@hibas.library, @luzlovesbooks, @kelibrary, @londonapples/TikTok
Pre-pandemic, reading rates among teenagers were falling. But BookTok, a subculture of social media platform TikTok, has made teens read more often – and influences what they read. Here’s how it works.
The growth of benefits derived from reading for pleasure starts young.
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Verbal abilities provide benefits in school and in one’s career. Fostering a love for stories and fiction in children should be a high priority.
Dinah Craik.
National Portrait Gallery
Marrying the husband of your deceased sister was legally considered incest, leaving women of all classes in ruinous circumstances.
Illustration by O. Sudomora for the children’s story ‘Bim-bom, dzelen-bom!’
(O. Sudomora)
Libraries are sharing knowledge so that when the war is over, Ukraine can see its cultural treasures rescued and restored.
Wheel of life and death.
Wikimedia commons
Why is a medieval Tibetan text about death so enduringly popular?
‘Le Régime du corps’ described a variety of ways to maintain health by keeping the body in balance.
The Bute Painter, circa 1285, MS Arsenal 2510, © Bibliothèque nationale de France
This illustrated health manual dating back to the 13th century provides a glimpse of daily life in aristocratic households during the Middle Ages.
St Andrew’s Church, Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Straight from our experts, here are five books to help you understand what’s happening right now in Ukraine and Russia, from a must-read history of Ukraine to a literary classic with insights into the Russian soul.
Illustration detail from the cover of Andy Griffiths’ international bestseller, The Day My Bum Went Psycho (Pan Macmillan).
A teacher was fired this month for reading his favourite picture book, I Need a New Butt, to kids. It’s an example of how US conservatives are focusing on school boards as weapons in the culture wars.
The critical reappraisal of Irish and Canadian cultural relations and influences, as well as Irish encounters with Indigenous Peoples, is of current and urgent interest to both Irish and Canadian scholars.
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Irish-born writers from the late 1700s to 1900 who spent time in present-day Canada influenced colonial narratives about Canadian identity or defended Irish linguistic and political autonomy.
At least seven states have banned the teaching of critical race theory.
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A scholar compares the debates over banning books in school today to a similar clash of ideas that took place during the Reagan era.
Paramatta Road: Omar Sakr’s debut novel gives voice to Arab-Australian Western Sydney.
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The lives of queer Arab-Australian boys and men are vividly inhabited in award-winning poet Omar Sakr’s darkly comic debut novel, set in Western Sydney.
A burned library at Kabul University after a deadly attack in Kabul, November 2020.
(AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
My friend, with whom I co-founded a library in Mazar-i-Sharif, tells me books are like lights. With no one visiting the library and opening books, ‘the lights are off.’
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‘Attention snacking’ may help keep us alert.
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A book that defies the usual mystery formula, Death on the Nile is more than just a clever tale about murder.