Blogs About Reading

Reading Without Walls

Gene Luen Yang

Gene Luen Yang began drawing comic books in the fifth grade. In 2006, his graphic novel, American Born Chinese — a memoir about growing up as an Asian American — became the first graphic novel to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. He is the author of the Secret Coders series and has written for the hit comics Avatar: The Last Airbender and Superman. In 2016, Yang was named the 5th National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and selected as a MacArthur Fellow. Visit Gene Yang's official website.

The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature raises awareness of the importance of young people's literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education, and the development and betterment of the lives of young people. The initiative is sponsored by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Children’s Book Council, and Every Child a Reader.

 

America's Librarian: Meet Dr. Carla Hayden

December 12, 2016

Gene sat down with the new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Dr. Hayden talks with Gene about her life in libraries, starting from when she was a young girl. She shares some of the surprises she's discovering at the Library of Congress. Did you know that the Library has more than 162 million (yep, million) items in its collection? Among those items: the world's largest collection of comic books!

 

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"What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person ..." —

Carl Sagan