What if the Rapture already happened but literally everyone got left behind Picture Peter waiting at the gates like a debut author at a book signing Heaven's version of Y2K

Sneakers is an underrated gem for all the reasons laid out here and also because James Earl Jones has to promise Dan Aykroyd a Winnebago at the end

Zeyna Lost and Found by debut author Shafaq Khan is out today! Think National Treasure (with a stolen jewel, not the Declaration of Independence) on the Hippie Trail (a pre-1980 route across the Middle East) for middle graders: an adventure wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an international heist!

We're days away from this clown discovering that autism is caused by women having credit cards in their own names

"If you compare the kids of my sycophants to random kids I stare at in airports, their reactions to my radioactive vibes are completely different" Dante had some great ideas but I would like to know if there are any new circles under construction

The weather in Minneapolis is beautiful and it feels like a sick joke and I hope this finds you well because I have to circle back on something

Long past time for Frey to get to the "find out" stage of his career

When people say they're not "naturally talented" at XYZ art and that's why AI should make it for them, I think of Darcy going "I'm not good at being polite to randos" and Lizzie going "so what man, I'm not good at playing piano because I never PRACTICE"

Time for another Things That Happened Thursday, my occasional roundup of stuff I meant to post about sooner! First up: DISPLACED by Patrick Ochieng is out in the US! Kirkus's starred review called this MG novel about hope in impossible circumstances "outstanding." lernerbooks.com/shop/show/25...

I'm gonna need to see more Babylon 5 content on here if I'm gonna be living through seasons 2-4 plot point for plot point

"Oh, I'm fine, I just saw an out-of-context quote from a children's book that struck me to my core" is actually one of my top 5 responses to "Uh are you okay"

I'd watch a Social-Network-style movie solely about how these books are getting their titles. Between Manchin's DEAD CENTER and Fetterman's UNFETTERED, someone's doing incredible work. At this rate I'm expecting YOU WIN SOME, YOU NEWSOM in 2026.

Finally a moment when I don't regret a lunch-break news check

We're watching children starve in real time while food trucks sit behind blockades and firing squads, but sure, attacking an excellent mayoral candidate over words he's never said seems like a good use of energy

Also a healthy relationship with mortality that encourages doing the most possible good with the time you have Also never becoming so meta that you risk noticing Gonzo and Rizzo as they follow you around

I believe Pedro Pascal is the one who coined the term "heinous loser behavior" but I'll be the one who runs it into the ground, and people like this (fascists and their apologists) will be the reason

Every so often it becomes crystal clear why certain people might genuinely be into having AI summarize art for them. If *this* is what your brain's producing, it's hard for even LLMs to do worse. (Resisting the urge to go full Pepe Silvia about everything wrong with this paragraph, please clap)

"The reason people of evil try to smother any point of light is because they know that in a field of darkness, light becomes something undeniable and unignorable; a point of reference and a point of distinction. Dark needs perfect darkness to be perfectly dark. So I ask myself: what light can I be?"

Correct energy

Aspiring to live by the principles of my favorite tiny antique dog

If you, like me, have been staring blankly at the wall for a little while after a dose of today's news and would like to do something purposeful, one option is to make a contribution to @weneeddiversebooks.bsky.social, which supports readers and communities around the country with work like this:

Turning off Copilot everywhere it pops up like I'm dodging the dangers of the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride "But Westley, what about Dropbox?" "The Cloud storage site? I don't think it's on there ye—"

Despite warnings from the law enforcement not to attend today’s No Kings rally after this mornings shooting of Minnesota lawmakers with the killer on the lose, the No Kings Rally is happening at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul.

We've once again arrived at Things That Happened Thursday, my occasional roundup of professional updates. Today's update: In addition to running the Carolrhoda middle grade and YA novel lists, I now have YA trade nonfiction under my umbrella in the form of Zest Books. mc.lernerbooks.com/zest-books

Gov. Walz: “I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected.” www.startribune.com/gov-tim-walz...

Also, the fact that Lincoln wasn't a stronger proponent of abolition is the biggest asterisk on his legacy, the caveat we whip out to caution people against lionizing him too much: He didn't go far enough soon enough! AND he still ended up with a civil war on his hands!

Welcome back to Things That Happened Thursday, an update on books I've edited! The Pecan Sheller, Lupe Ruiz-Flores's middle grade novel about a groundbreaking 1938 strike, is a Junior Library Guild selection! www.juniorlibraryguild.com/the-pecan-sh... @lernerbooks.bsky.social

Gonna have to watch The Young Pope and The New Pope before the third season, The Woke Pope, premiers on HBO/Max

It's almost like viewing everything as a product—knowledge, creative expression, relationships—is an incoherent and stunting worldview That's how we end up with these bozos trying to live forever despite having (cultivating) a miserable minute-to-minute experience of being alive

Jennifer Mason-Black's riveting SOMETIMES THE GIRL—a mystery wrapped in a meditation—is out today! In starred reviews, Kirkus called it "beautifully written & powerfully uplifting" and Foreword deemed it "a touching coming-of-age novel." lernerbooks.com/shop/show/25... bookshop.org/p/books/some...

Welcome to the latest edition of Things That Happened Thursday, an update on books I've edited! First up: THE COLOR OF SOUND by Emily Barth Isler is a Pedro and Daniel Intersectionality Book Awards Honor Book! readyourworld.org/awards/padib... @lernerbooks.bsky.social @esckeyes.bsky.social

The way these chuckleheads break into a cold sweat at the mere idea of public transit should be studied by anthropologists

We've been asked this a few times & now have an answer! If you're in publishing, but not author you can join Publishing Professionals Against Book Bans! The group is still in development but you can sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Roughly once a month I think about how there should be a movie or a miniseries about Robert Smalls and how instead we're asked, as a nation, to pretend that Bob Dylan is interesting

Couldn't give off a more villainous vibe if she were on the set of a Bond movie. What a small, warped, miserable person. Trans women are women. Trans people ARE PEOPLE. Feel however you feel about HP *and* stop throwing money into the black hole that is JKR's soul.

Every Friday like clockwork

Today's energy: putting "Anxiety" by Doechii and the Clancy Brothers' cover of "Johnson's Motor Car" on the same playlist

tbh Jefferson would bounce back fast, going from thinly veiled disappointment about various human rights milestones to drafting NYT-ready editorials in defense of private prisons and Matt Gaetz. Meanwhile Franklin would be fully fixated on, like, the concept of contact lenses

Unfun fact: In 1898 white supremacists in Wilmington, NC, staged a full-blown coup d'etat of the integrated city government, called it a race riot, and got away with it. The weight of this country's unfinished business puts the surface pressure of Venus to shame.

It's PUB DAY for Lupe Ruiz-Flores's middle grade novel THE PECAN SHELLER, about a real 1938 strike. What can I say about it that three starred reviews haven't covered? Maybe just this: I sometimes ask myself, "What would Petra do?" and haven't yet been steered wrong. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

The 7 years leading up to the start of the Revolutionary War, specifically in Boston, where social and political movements intersected across race and class in ways that typically aren't covered in school because the focus is on white elites, omg someone please ask me about it and start the clock

“There has never been a time when you, or I, made art in a society that truly supports or values it, within a state that recognizes our needs and our full humanity … We are still here. We’re still showing up for each other … we have to be curious, and keep nurturing and expanding our imaginations”

It's "Things That Happened" Thursday for books I've edited! THEY THOUGHT THEY BURIED US by NoNieqa Ramos is a finalist for the Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Children's/Young Adult Literature! publishingtriangle.org/awards/the-j...

you can feel the alcohol *and* the domestic violence radiating off this man, as heavy as medieval perfume and yet still not thick enough to mask the scent of a fourth-rate brain

Been trying not to become too much of a Pritzker fangirl (politicians ≠ our friends etc etc) but yes, this is it, sign me up And anybody who's wavered on trans rights—or prevaricated on any other human rights issue for that matter—can rot, sorrynotsorry

I found this interview with author Jennie Liu fascinating even after editing the book itself and going down several of the related rabbit holes! (THE RED CAR TO HOLLYWOOD is out now: You can order it, check your local bookstore for it, or get it from your library! bookshop.org/p/books/the-...)

The Libby app previews the first 50 pages. I'm hooked. The "anecdote" from her childhood is utterly bonkers, made me want to ruin her parents' lives, & neatly foreshadows where the book's headed. (ALSO shows sharks are far less a threat to humans than humans are to everything. Justice for sharks.)

Area Man confuses never having thrown a punch for never having committed violence

9 Senate Democrats pondering whether capitulating to authoritarianism works:

Minnesotans assembllllle: Smith has officially said she's a no on cloture, so that leaves Klobuchar. The more I call the easier it gets. I now start my messages with "Hello again." I hope the staffer in charge of clearing Klobuchar's voicemail inbox is starting to recognize me. Become insufferable!