There are no mincing words: climate change bears significant responsibility for the fires and subsequent destruction. It is not the first major series of wildfires in California even in the last decade, nor will it be the last we see of such wildfires impacting life in the state and beyond. While it is important to understand what happened, this is not the space to do so, and often, those answers are cold comfort. They point to the same things we all know: how we live our lives right now is unsustainable, and these actions have grave consequences. We also simply don’t know what we should know yet. As of writing, not all of the fires have been contained. What you’ll find here is part reading guide—as Jamie Loftus discusses on the “The L.A. Fires: Who’s Being Forgotten” episode of Sixteenth Minute of Fame, there are a lot of stories that people don’t know or aren’t hearing when it comes to the fires. The episode is required listening. It is grounded in the ideas shared in …

Getting up to speed on the review sources being used and given legitimacy outside of BookLooks matters because in order to effect actual change, we have to be aware of the various ways these tools are being used and implemented. Certainly, get to know BookLooks. But if your knowledge ends there, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Even since the last time I did such a roundup of these biased online book ratings systems in November 2022, more have popped up and become favored by the myriad groups working to ban books in their local community schools and public libraries. It might not feel good to give these sites any views by clicking the links. But it is vital to see how they’re operating in order to understand why they’re not worthy of being used in professional settings. Compare review sources that are long-running, professional resources by and for library and education professionals such as Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, and you’ll see why and how any institutional leadership should …