Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school and with the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
Encyclopedia Americana is a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first general encyclopedia of any magnitude to be published in North America. With Collier's Encyclopedia and Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana became one of the three major and large English-language general encyclopedias; the three were sometimes collectively called "the ABCs of encyclopedias". Following the acquisition of Grolier in 2000, the encyclopedia has been produced by Scholastic.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
Young adult literature (YA) is literature, most often including novels, written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. The term YA was first used regularly in the 1960s in the United States. The YA category includes most of the genres found in adult fiction, with themes that include friendship, drugs and alcohol, and sexual and gender identity. Stories that focus on the challenges of youth may be categorized as problem novels or coming-of-age novels.
Gordon Korman is a Canadian author of children's and young adult fiction books. Korman's books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide over a career spanning four decades and have appeared at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Mary GrandPré is an American illustrator best known for her cover and chapter illustrations of the Harry Potter books in their U.S. editions published by Scholastic. She received a Caldecott Honor in 2015 for illustrating Barb Rosenstock's The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art. GrandPré, who creates her artwork with paint and pastels, has illustrated more than twenty books and has appeared in gallery exhibitions and periodicals such as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The Wall Street Journal.
Weekly Reader was a weekly educational classroom magazine designed for children. It began in 1928 as My Weekly Reader. Editions covered curriculum themes in the younger grade levels and news-based, current events and curriculum themed-issues in older grade levels. The publishing company also created workbooks, literacy centers, and picture books for younger grades.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series. Set during Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, the novel explores the past of the boy wizard's nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and Harry's preparations for the final battle against Voldemort alongside his headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore.
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's conflict with Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic, and subjugate all wizards and Muggles.
Accelerated Reader (AR) is an educational tool used to monitor and manage students independent reading practice and reading comprehension in the English and Spanish languages respectively. This program works by assessing the student's performances and awarding points towards educational and individual reading goals.
Weekly Reader Publishing was a publisher of educational materials in the United States that had been in existence for over 100 years. It provided teaching materials to elementary and secondary schools that was used by more than 90 percent of that country's school districts.
National Book Trust (NBT) is an Indian publishing house, which was founded in 1957 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. The activities of the Trust include publishing, promotion of books and reading, promotion of Indian books abroad, assistance to authors and publishers, and promotion of children's literature.
The Lexile Framework for Reading is an educational tool that uses a measure called a Lexile to match readers with books, articles and other leveled reading resources. Readers and books are assigned a score on the Lexile scale, in which lower scores reflect easier readability for books and lower reading ability for readers. The Lexile framework uses quantitative methods, based on individual words and sentence lengths, rather than qualitative analysis of content, to produce scores. Accordingly, the scores for texts do not reflect factors such as multiple levels of meaning or maturity of themes. Hence, the United States Common Core State Standards recommends the use of alternative, qualitative methods for selecting books for students at grade 6 and over. In the US, Lexile measures are reported from reading programs and assessments annually. Thus, about half of U.S. students in grades 3rd through 12th receive a Lexile measure each year. In addition to being used in schools in all 50 states, Lexile measures are also used outside of the United States.
Smile is an autobiographical graphic novel written by Raina Telgemeier. It was published in February 2010 by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. The novel provides an account of the author's life, characterized by dental procedures and struggles with fitting in, from sixth grade to high school. The book originated as a webcomic, which was serialized on Girlamatic. It is most appropriate for readers between fourth and sixth grade. Smile has had a pedagogical impact, and reviews have been written on this novel.
Melissa, previously published as George until April 2022, is a children's novel about a young transgender girl written by American author Alex Gino. The novel tells the story of Melissa, a fourth-grade girl who is struggling to be herself to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees Melissa as George, a boy. Melissa uses the class play, Charlotte's Web, to show her mom that she is a girl by switching roles with her best friend, and playing the part of Charlotte. Scholastic first published the novel on August 25, 2015, and it has had a mixed reaction because of its LGBT+ content. In 2021, Gino retitled the novel Melissa.
Book fairs and literary festivals are held throughout South Africa each year to promote literacy among children and adults. A country's literacy rate is often a key social indicator of development. In 2005, UNESCO Institute for Statistics reported a literacy rate of 94.37% among the population aged 15 years and older. The literacy rate among the male population in this age group was 95.4% and 93.41 for female counterparts. According to Statistics South Africa, functional illiteracy among those aged 20 years or older, was recorded at 15.4% in 2005. This has improved from 2002's 27.3%. Women are more likely to be functionally illiterate across all age groups, apart from those aged between 20 and 39 years old.
As of 2018, several firms in the United States rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Cengage Learning, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Wiley.
Mónica Brown is an American academic and author of children's literature. Known for her Lola Levine and Sarai chapter book series, as well as numerous biographies covering such Latin American luminaries as Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Dolores Huerta, and Cesar Chavez, she writes relatable characters that highlight the nuance and diversity of the Latinx experience and girl empowerment. Her motivation is to show that bicultural children are not made up of cultural fractions but whole people with a rich and vibrant cultural heritage, such as her character the bicultural red-headed Peruvian-Scottish-American Marisol McDonald. Brown is also an English professor at Northern Arizona University.
Elizabeth C. Bunce is an American author who writes mysteries, fantasy, and ghost stories. Best known for her Edgar Award-winning Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery series and her novel A Curse Dark as Gold, her books feature strong female characters, are often inspired by folklore, and targeted toward young adult and pre-teen readers while also appealing to adults. Her writing style has been referred to as literary fiction, and her works have been called “mysteries in fantasy dress,” “spun with mystery and shot through with romance.” Her works are infused with the results of her research into history, science, culture, and etymology, often set in or inspired by historical places and times.
Maurice Richard Robinson Jr. was an American business executive and educator. From 1975 until his death in 2021, Robinson was the chief executive officer of Scholastic Corporation. Robinson was noted for bringing many book franchises to younger readers, such as Harry Potter and Captain Underpants.
US$1.7 billion (2022) [1] 
