Five of the country’s largest book and journal publishers along with bestselling author Scott Turow have joined together to file a class action lawsuit against Meta and its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, for willful infringement of millions of works, torrented via pirate sites, to develop Meta’s Llama large language models.

Childhood, Interrupted: PW Talks with Hannah Thurman

company specializing in shortform video, to co-produce a slate of 40 animated microdramas inspired by Harlequin Romance titles, beginning with Catherine Mann’s A Fairy-Tail Ending next month.

Hold the Phone

When I was a child, there were hardly any picture books in Greenlandic that mirrored our modern lives. To fill this void, in the late 2000s, I wrote my first children’s books in my native language, Greenlandic. I wanted my boys, and all Greenlandic children, to see themselves as the main characters—neither as props in history nor as caricatures—in stories honouring their cultural identity and their contemporary lives, set in their home environment. Joyful stories that take place today.

Chemistry has always been difficult to describe in words, and romance readers are increasingly turning to the graphic novel format, for its engaging blend of prose and illustrations. The massive popularity of series such as Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper and Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus are evidence that graphic novels are offering readers a refreshing way to dip into the genre. This spring, teens will see plenty of new romance graphic novels that span tropes and subgenres hitting shelves. We spoke with the creators of six forthcoming projects that display how the medium might just be the new literary fix for lovers of love.

 By Peter Johnson – born in England and lived in Canada many years.

For anyone who’ ever been in love … intimate, inspiring stores pay tribute to love’s ability to endure beyond time …

Scholastic Sells HQ, Distribution Facility - 

In impeccably crisp signature-style illustrations, Caldecott Medalist Chin opens this picture book with a series of sweeping, high-altitude images of a whirling hurricane forming over the Atlantic and heading for North Carolina’s Hattaras Island. Then he zooms in on the island’s inhabitants as news spreads: “It’s a Category 1 storm,” one child says to another. As the storm churns toward the island, reportorial text that follows the days of a week explains how forecasters observe satellite photos and measurements to predict the storm’s track and intensity, and how hurricane hunters fly right through the storm to investigate. (Smaller text blocks give more detail.) Meanwhile, the community prepares, an evacuation is ordered, and the islanders cooperate throughout: “My generator won’t start, can you take a look?” one queries into a phone; “Of course” is the response. When the storm hits, steady, minute-by-minute narration confers a sense of comforting predictability despite the chaos: “Branches snap. The power goes out.” After the storm, spreads show the island’s residents working together to tidy and repair, moments that aptly underline growing weather events as opportunities for community care. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Back matter includes a rich trove of resources. Ages 4–8. (May)

Insert: “That night they drank whisky. The host became wilder, waved his shotgun around, and told Robert that he was the legendary Cannibal Joe. As the night went on, the atmosphere in the cabin grew terrifying … “

In a ‘New World,’ Comics Are Making a Comeback