Author: shainaolmanson

Gender Inequality in Sports: Guest Post from Author Kirstin Cronn-Mills

I’m not an athlete. No matter how much I enjoy being active, I’m too clumsy for sports. Too uninterested in competition.

But I raised an athlete, and we’re a family who enjoys watching sports of all kinds. An intense amount of dedication and determination goes along with athletic achievement. I know about the time, money, and support it takes to improve your game. I know about both joy and sorrow on the field—my son still carries a particular defeat with him, twelve years after it happened.

My love for athletes helped me write Gender Inequality in Sports—I wanted to champion the strength of women athletes who fight stereotypes and disrespect on top of the work they do for their sport. I want to recognize the perseverance of these competitors and share their stories with young people.

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Read the True Story behind Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys in The Dozier School for Boys

by Shaina Olmanson, Associate Editorial Director, Twenty-First Century Books

Colson Whitehead’s new novel, The Nickel Boys, came out this month, a fictional story based on the Dozier School for Boys in Florida. Whitehead’s novel follows one wrongfully indicted boy and the abuse experienced at a school modeled after Dozier. In her forthcoming Twenty-First Century Books title, The Dozier School for Boys: Forensics, Survivors, and a Painful Past, forensic scientist and author Dr. Elizabeth A. Murray investigates the school’s history, detailing stories by survivors, as well as digging into the forensic anthropology of the graves and skeletons found on the grounds. This true crime report looks at the institutional abuse that occurred at Dozier and seeks to uncover the facts of why and how this happened for so long.

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Reflections: Teen Lit Con 2019

Lerner editors Alison Lorenz and Jordyn Taylor

by Shaina Olmanson, Associate Editorial Director, Twenty-First Century Books

On April 27th, Lerner headed to the sixth annual Teen Lit Con, a yearly event put on by Minneapolis/St. Paul area libraries to promote literature, reading and writing, and to connect readers and authors. Read More