Thank you to everyone who has used and relied on TeachingKidsNews.com for the past 15 years. Our mission was always to present the most important, urgent or fascinating news story of the week and break it down and add context so young people could access it easily. We also added curriculum questions to each article so teachers could use it in the classroom. As you know, TKN has always been free—and ad-free—so kids could use and understand our articles, in a safe space. It was a volunteer project that was needed, and which has served millions of Canadian kids, teachers and parents, since 2010. We were awarded international recognition for our work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, it has become tougher to find a way to explain major breaking stories to kids. Tougher to do, and tougher on me and the professional journalists who have helped me over the years (including my co-founders, Jon and Kathleen Tilly). The world seems more polarized now, and in many ways the news has become too complex, and often too heartbreaking, to explain to kids on this website—or even to myself, sometimes. (Parents and teachers, who are in person with young people and can answer their questions, can often find safe ways into subjects that would not appropriate for TKN, where we can’t be with them to directly address their questions.)
On Dec. 3, 2025 I spoke with CBC Radio’s Farrah Merali on Here and Now, to explain why I’ve been unable to continue posting articles on TeachingKidsNews.com, my passion project for more than a decade and a half. We talked about what I’m now doing, to continue to help young people improve their critical thinking skills so they can better navigate the increasingly challenging and often murky waters of the internet more safely. That is, a series of illustrated non-fiction books for kids that help them build their knowledge of social media, the internet, “fake news,” algorithms and sources.
Listen to the seven-minute interview here: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-82-here-and-now-toronto/clip/16185447-tuesday-afternoon-book-club-joyce-grant
In 2022 my first book in the critical thinking series, Can You Believe It? Spot Fake News and Find the Facts, with gorgeous illustrations by Kathleen Marcotte and published by Kids Can Press, came out. The Washington Post’s Ron Charles called it “…a book to start helping children discern the difference between truth and lies, information and propaganda.” It’s now in the hands of young (and old!) readers around the world in six languages (Korean, Japanese, Finnish, Romanian and Kazakh in addition to the original English). Can You Believe It? helps kids understand what “fake news” is, why it’s made, what real journalism is and how it’s created, and why it’s important to know the difference. It won two Hamilton Literary Awards (best children’s book and best non-fiction) and was nominated for others, including the Forest of Reading’s Yellow Cedar Award and the Hackmatack Award.
This year, I published Burst Your Bubble! Outsmart the Algorithms and See What You’re Missing, which is about how algorithms deliberately put us in “information bubbles,” blocking unfamiliar points of view from our online news feeds and in our real lives as well. It explains why it’s important to see the whole world and understand what’s happening outside of our bubbles, and it offers 18 practical tips to help us all get a start on bursting our information bubbles. It was beautifully illustrated by Jan Dolby and published by Owlkids Books. It was named a Silver Honor Book by the California Reading Association and received a starred review from the School Library Journal as well as widespread acclaim from great reviewers including Quill & Quire and many others.
I’m continuing my series of books that help kids understand what’s happening online and think more critically about it, with at least two more additions. Next year, This is a Library Book will hit the shelves, published by Kids Can Press, to highlight and honour important and wonderfully fascinating libraries and librarians who have held space and built communities for people around the world. And in 2027, Who Says? will help kids identify good sources—and understand why they need to avoid bad ones, published by Owlkids Books.
I hope you will listen to my interview with Farrah Merali to find out more about how I made the difficult decision to hold off on posting on TeachingKidsNews.com and why I decided to continue my work through this series of critical thinking books. Who knows? Maybe I will decide to start posting on TKN again. I hope so. But in the meantime, there are more than 1,100 great articles on the site, all free to for you use and enjoy. So I’ll keep TKN up for awhile yet.
Most importantly, I want to thank the millions of people who have used TKN over the last decade and a half. I have appreciated everyone who shared their stories with me about using it in their classroom, and how their children have enjoyed reading it. Thank you for doing the important work of staying current and building your media literacy and critical thinking skills.
Please stay tuned for more information about upcoming books. And in the meantime, you can purchase Can You Believe It? and Burst Your Bubble! from my author website here.
Thank you!
