I arrived in San Diego for the American Library Association’s 2024 annual meeting, held June 27–July 2, filled with optimism. Before flying out, I had learned that the New York Public Library would be reversing recent budget cuts and restoring Sunday service. In a year rife with book challenges, it was a much-needed piece of good news for libraries.

Still, there were frequent reminders that we’ve got a tough road ahead of us. Many publishers told me that censorship is a near constant threat. Moderator Kit Ballenger reports that at her panel, “Soft Censorship of LGBTQIA+ Content and Its Chilling Effect on the Children’s Book World,” a group of authors and publishers told the audience that while outright challenges and bans are a significant issue, we must also beware of a more insidious form of censorship: school visits being quietly canceled or librarians never even adding a book to a collection. Ballenger, a children’s literacy consultant, says that she was heartened at the opportunity to open up the conversation: “There were some moments of joy and constructive wisdom balancing out the doom and gloom.…I especially appreciated hearing afterwards from some attendees who hadn’t been aware of the extent of the problem but now feel prepared to identify and confront it.”

The annual conference sends all members of the children’s literature community the message that we’re stronger together—and that libraries and librarians are powerful. At “Celebrating Joy in the Library,” a discussion hosted by Baker & Taylor and Kirkus Reviews, children’s book creators Dave Eggers, Matt de la Peña, Kwame Mbalia, Xelena González, and Adriana M. Garcia sang the praises of these vital public institutions. Mbalia reminisced about his high school librarian, who made him feel at home in the library when he was an awkward, friendless freshman: “It was a reminder that there are people out there who are looking out for us, identify us, see us even when we think we aren’t being seen, recognize something within us, and invite us into a place where we feel welcome, warm, happy, and, most important, safe and allowed to be ourselves.”

Nowhere was the feeling of community more palpable than at the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Breakfast. Here, tradition and ceremony mingled with unfettered joy and a sense of spiritual uplift. The morning began with attendees standing to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (often considered the “Black national anthem”) and bowing their heads for the invocation.

The tears flowed freely as honorees such as Shannon Wright (Holding Her Own) and Dare Coulter (An American Story) paid tribute to the artists who paved the way for them, the loving mothers who nurtured them, and the kid lit community that has guided and supported them. Carole Boston Weatherford, who received two CSK author honors this year (for Kin and How Do You Spell Unfair?), was surprised and moved when her son Jeffery Boston Weatherford, illustrator of Kin, stood and delivered a speech of his own. While most parents are accustomed to watching their children grow, he noted that he was in the unique position of observing his mother blossom with every book she published.

The conference culminated with the Newbery-Caldecott-Legacy Awards Banquet, an especially emotional event this year. Vashti Harrison, who made history as the first Black woman to receive a Caldecott Medal, turned personal in her speech, opening up about body image issues and depression. Her book Big is a potent warning about the effect that words can have on vulnerable young people, and she implored audience members to heed her message and “do the work addressing and dismantling your implicit bias.”

Accepting the Newbery Medal for The Eyes & the Impossible, Eggers said that it took him years to write the middle-grade novel. Explaining that his parents died in their 50s, Eggers, 54, said, “I have never told anyone this, but I vowed that if I made it past 50, I would write whatever the hell I wanted to write.” The result was “a story about a dog who ate garbage and who lived in the hollow of a dead tree in an urban park by the sea. A story about the ecstasy of moving fast and the unreliability of ducks. I wanted to write about friendship—such a hard thing to write about—and about sacrifice and honor and the vaulting joy of being depended upon.”

Eggers concluded by speaking to librarians’ crucial role in the fight against censorship—words that stirred us all. “Books are simply souls in paper form, so when we accept a strange book, we accept a strange soul.…When the small-minded ban books, they are banning souls. They are removing certain voices from the chorus of humanity and the chorus of history. And it is librarians who are tasked with making sure these souls are not removed, that they always have a home and always have a voice. Librarians are the keepers and protectors of all history’s souls, its outcasts and oddballs, its screamers and whisperers, all of whom have a right to be heard. No pressure, but we count on you to save us all, to protect us all, to preserve us all.”

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.