Monday is Drop Everything and Read – or DEAR – Day. Just like the name says, it's a day to read. It was inspired by Beverly Cleary's "Ramona Quimby, Age 8," and April 12 was picked because it's Cleary's birthday.

A mean prank involving a school desk, a cruel remark at a restaurant. Lisa Fipps suffered through such experiences as a child – as does her main character, Ellie, in “Starfish.”

Leigh Bardugo’s multi-series saga, the inspiration for Netflix's “Shadow and Bone,” revolves around Grisha, soldiers with exceptional abilities to injure, heal, summon storms and control tides.

The title of this smart, slyly clever debut from journalist Alexandra Andrews says it all. Just who is this Maud Dixon whose first novel is the most talked about book in the history of publishing?

Opening the spring series, retired UW Professor Carlos Gil will discuss Mexican immigration, drawing on his 30 years of experience teaching Latin American history and his own family’s story.

Local poet and essayist Kate Lebo’s latest literary project started with a bite of quince in graduate school. Next week, Lebo will participate in several events during EWU’s Get Lit! Festival.

EWU’s annual Get Lit! Festival is going virtual this year, but audiences at home will still be able to access a wide range of author readings, Q&A sessions, craft classes and panel discussions.

Twenty years ago this spring, the Archie comics spinoff movie “Josie and the Pussycats” was released in theaters. To this day, “Josie and the Pussycats” is the only big-screen release of characters from Archie Comics and one of the few comic book-related films that do not feature characters who wear capes. Here’s a look at other Archie Comics adaptations:

Among the many indignities endured by Ramona Quimby is a midyear progress report sent home by her first-grade teacher, which informs her parents that she is a busybody.

Downsized from her dream job as a crime reporter for the Miami newspaper and dumped by her cheating dreamboat husband, 30-year-old Lana Lewis returned to her cross-state hometown.

Connie Wassem Scott remembers starting to write as a 12-year-old shortly after her family moved from Colorado to Texas. Leaving her childhood home intensified the general pain.

Ready to be schooled by Ken Burns again? The latest offering from the history-minded filmmaker is a three-part, six-hour documentary that examines the visionary work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway. 

Author Martha Hall Kelly joined Northwest Passages Book Club to discuss her latest historical fiction novel, “Sunflower Sisters,” with The Spokesman-Review’s Kristi Burns Friday.

A graphic novel for children that was a spin-off of the “Captain Underpants” series is being pulled from library and store shelves after its publisher said it “perpetuates passive racism.”

When Chang-rae Lee begins a project, the writer always asks himself: “Why do I need this story?” “My Year Abroad,” his comic novel, is about a young New Jerseyan named Tiller who’s “twelve and one-half % Asian.” 

Author Martha Hall Kelly will join Northwest Passages Book Club virtually to discuss her latest historical fiction novel, “Sunflower Sisters,” with Kristi Burns at 5 p.m. Friday.

Martha Hall Kelly’s latest novel looking at a family tree of women wartime heroes is the very antithesis of Margaret Mitchell’s, “Gone With the Wind.” Mitchell’s love song has frayed and worn out.

Raised in Yamhill, Oregon, Beverly Cleary, the beloved child author of the "Ramona" books, along with titles that include "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" and the epistolary "Dear Mr. Henshaw," leaves behind a literary legacy. 

Beverly Cleary, the celebrated children’s author whose memories of her Oregon childhood were shared with millions through the likes of Ramona and Beezus Quimby and Henry Huggins, has died. She was 104.