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How A High School Student Won A School Board Seat By Standing Up To Extremists: Today in Books

Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Ignyte Awards!

The third annual Ignyte Awards, which seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, were presented on Saturday, September 17th, 2022. Among the winners from the 1205 submitted ballots are A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark for Best Novel: Adult, A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger for Best Novel: Young Adult, and Root Magic by Eden Royce for Best in Middle Grade.

How A High School Student Won A School Board Seat By Standing Up To Extremists

Eighteen-year-old Shiva Rajbhandari defeated 47-year-old incumbent Steve Schmidt who was endorsed by local far-right extremist groups in the race for a seat on the Boise School District Board of Trustees with 56% of the vote. For Rajbhandari, this result demonstrated part of the reason he ran for board election in the first place, to demonstrate that the majority of Boise School District patrons do not support the book-banning, anti-mask, and anti-LGBTQ sentiments of the extremists who backed his opponent. Rajbhandari hopes to establish a permanent student position on the school board so that he is replaced by another student when he graduates.

Canada’s Indigo Books & Music Names New CEO

Former company president of Canada’s Indigo Books & Music, Peter Ruis has been named CEO in place of Heather Reisman who will now assume the role of executive chairman. Ruis is a former retail executive with 30 years of experience at Levis, Ted Baker, Anthropologie, and John Lewis. Ruis’s succession to CEO was part of a planned hire by Indigo Books & Music to help cope with pandemic lockdowns. As Canada’s dominant bookstore chain, Ruis plans to keep the focus on brick-and-mortar retail, making things bigger and bolder.

Longlists Announced for 2022 National Book Awards

The longlists for the 2022 National Book Awards were announced on September 14–16. Read on to see the titles longlisted for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature.