Terrible news for pedants as Merriam-Webster relaxes the rules of English
It’s fine to end a sentence with a preposition, according to a shock ruling from the American dictionary publisher. But is it OK to recklessly split infinitives?
Author Khaled Hosseini on book bans in the US: ‘It betrays students’
Hosseini’s The Kite Runner has joined a growing list of titles ‘under review’ or challenged by school boards, with nearly 5,894 books banned from July 2021 to June 2023
Colin Lacey obituary
Other lives: Academic committed to improving education, media standards and environmental awareness
‘Every school should have a library’: Philip Pullman calls for new UK laws
The novelist has joined fellow children’s writers Michael Morpurgo and Julia Donaldson in a plea to ministers for action
Michael Morpurgo backs call to ensure poorer children have access to books
Leading children’s author says deprived children in UK are missing out on lifetime of reading for pleasure
We should cherish handwriting: the scribbled, the scrawled, the stubbornly jotted
Our communications lose character when we give up putting pen to paper. It’s hard to imagine an Auden poem celebrating the arrival of the night email
Reading print improves comprehension far more than looking at digital text, say researchers
A study from the University of Valencia found that print reading could boost skills by six to eight times more than digital reading
Jon Nixon obituary
Other lives: Academic interested in intellectual history and prolific author of books including on Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg
Penguin Random House launches high schoolers’ award to combat book bans
The publisher’s $10,000 Freedom of Expression prize invites teens to write about a banned book that changed their life, against a backdrop of rising censorship
Black headteachers in UK say pupils crying out for ‘people who look like them’
Letters To a Young Generation: Aspiring school leaders book aims to encourage Black teachers to pursue leadership positions
Haters gonna hate … but stars like Taylor Swift can help to make literature pop
I teach the megastar’s lyrics. Adding contemporary material to school curriculums won’t dumb down – it will inspire, says academic Elly McCausland
Europe’s oldest student newspaper saved from closure
More than £3,000 raised to keep the Student – founded in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson at Edinburgh University – going
Anthony Stevens obituary
Analyst and psychiatrist who proposed a science of human nature that embraced psychology, anthropology and medicine
‘If we don’t teach kids about consent, the internet will’: Natasha Devon on the importance of sex education
The mental health campaigner’s new book tackles sex and relationships through the eyes of a 16-year-old. In the face of a backlash against inclusive sex ed in schools she explains why we have to keep the conversation open
‘We still make judgments from the way people talk’: Rob Drummond decodes accent prejudice
As a new book explores stereotypes that are socialised into us, 11 readers also reflect on the way they speak