Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. In the fifth grade, I ate it hard on the school playground.

I think I was trying to do a dip or something on the monkey bars and ended up just falling straight through.

There was blood and they had to call my mom and I had to get stitches on my head and all of that. And the next day, I was super nervous about going back to school, right? I thought everyone is going to roast me. I've got this thing in the back of my head. They even had to shut down the playground for a bit to clean up the blood. But it was one of the best days of school in my life.

Everyone clapped when I came in.

These kids were like, yo, that was so cool how you got blood everywhere.

And they all made me feel like a badass.

I thought about that day as I listened to today's interview between NPR's Elsa Chang and writer John

Shu and illustrator Veronica Miller-Jamison.

Their kid's book, This Is a School, depicts school as a place where kids can make real connections with each other.

And it being National Library Week, we thought, what better time to shout out the school librarians who help make that happen.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

What is a school for? It's a question that many educators, families, and students have been

asking and looking for answers to the last couple years, is a school a holding pen for kids,

or a place that preps students for tests?

Or is a school a community's very center?

Well, this is a school is a new picture book that tries to find some of these answers.

It was written by John Shue and illustrated by Veronica Miller

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