LOS ANGELES ― “Moon Over Manifest,” Clare Vanderpool’s story of a girl in Depression-era Kansas who investigates a hidden past, was awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal on Monday as the American Library Association presented its top honors to books for children and young adults at a ceremony in San Diego. The book, for 9-to-12-year-olds, is the debut from Kansas-based author Vanderpool.The top aw

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) ― Mark Twain wrote that “the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter.” A new edition of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” will try to find out if that holds true by replacing a word considered a racial slur with the word “slave” in an effort not to offend readers.Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with Ne

MOSCOW (AFP) ― A century ago, all of Russia mourned Leo Tolstoy’s death at a backwater train station. But today the novelist and pacifist, who abhorred any form of government, is more respected in the West than his home country.The centennial of Tolstoy’s death, 100 years ago Saturday, seems to be passing virtually unnoticed in Russia. No specials in state channels’ primetime schedules. No retrospectives in Russia’s main state museums. Facing the moral dilemmas posed by Russia’s most famous son