From The Mixed Up Files

Get cozy this fall and cuddle up with one of these amazing new books. October 6th The Creeps By Tahlor Mejia Front Desk meets Stephen King! In this perfectly frightening middle grade read, a twelve-year-old boy moves into a creepy motel where breaking the rules doesn’t just mean getting kicked out—it means disappearing for good. Dylan has a bad feeling about the Good Night Motel. Ever since he and his mom got kicked out of their apartment, their new living arrangements have given him a serious case of the creeps. The roof is sagging; the...

“Let Books Be. Protect the Freedom to Read.” That’s the theme of this year’s Banned Books Week. A joint effort by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Banned Books Week Coalition, this annual week of focus provides the opportunity to make a bold, collective statement about the freedom to read.    This year’s campaign features three separate illustrations that highlight the importance of libraries. According to the ALA, award-winning illustrators Hyesu Lee, Loveis Wise, and Mikey Burton created artwork that “embraces joy and creativity as acts of resilience, reminding our communities that a handful of people running organized censorship...

The recent rise of books being taken out of libraries has made an impact on young readers. Now, more than ever, young people have less access to titles representing diversity. “The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked that of the 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, 39 % represent the...

AI in Schools Has a Cost: Impacts and Responses by Kamilla Milligan and Alexandra Millarhouse   Are you being asked to incorporate AI into your work or classroom? How do you feel about that? The push for AI seems to be everywhere these days, including in many classrooms. As educators,...

In today’s Author Spotlight, Sydney Dunlap chats with author Jenny Mattern about her highly acclaimed new middle-grade novel, Where the Light Shines In. Jenny Mattern is a crafter of stories, a fledgling poet, and a cake-for-breakfast enthusiast who wishes she lived in a tiny cottage on a windswept cliff above...

As a young child picking strawberries alongside his family, Pedro Martin learned that hard work is survival. Even then, he loved to draw cartoons when he wasn’t in the fields and especially loved Saturdays when he could watch cartoons and draw. While in the fields, he imagined the characters of...

Get cozy this fall and cuddle up with one of these amazing new books. October 6th The Creeps By Tahlor Mejia Front Desk meets Stephen King! In this perfectly frightening middle grade read, a twelve-year-old boy moves into a creepy motel where breaking the rules doesn’t just mean getting kicked...

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” This famous quote by Stephen King encapsulates an important truth for writers: We should always be reading, and the parenthetical in that quote tells us why. Reading gives us tools, and the only...