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  • Francelia Butler
  • Anne Devereux Jordan

The lecture auditorium is much-used, drab and large. Five minutes before class it is already filled with students sliding into their seats, slapping notebooks open, shoving unused books under chairs, leaning over to talk to a friend who had to settle for the only seat in the next row down. The less fortunate late-arrivals are forced to perch on the steps that descend to the raised lecture platform. Above the noise, reminiscent of that made by the "casts of thousands" of old biblical films, a voice calls out:

"Quiet please! Could everybody be quiet now?!"

The voice belongs to a plump, colorfully-dressed woman, her face ringed by a halo of white curls. The noise shuffles down to an occasional murmur and—extraordinarily—350 faces look expectantly and (curiouser and curiouser) eagerly toward the speaker. Another class of English 200, Children's Literature, has begun at the University of Connecticut.

The magician of all this is Dr. Francelia Butler, who for twenty years has entranced and educated students in Renaissance literature, film, Shakespeare and, of course, children's literature. At the ChLA conference, Dr. Butler will be speaking on her own journey in and into Children's Literature.

Francelia Butler was born and raised in Ohio, received her B.A. from Oberlin and, twenty-five years after that, her M.A. from Georgetown University and her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. At the age of fifty, after raising a family and having had a full career as a journalist and drama critic, she embarked upon yet another career that would take her both around the world and into the world of children's books.

Dr. Butler started her teaching career at the University of Tennessee, and then moved to the University of Connecticut, where she continues to teach, and where she has built her class in children's literature from the usual small size to the largest class in children's literature in the country, averaging around 300 students each semester. Innovative teaching, exciting projects, and interesting and well-known guest speakers have made this class a legend at the University of Connecticut; it is a class students don't want to miss taking, no matter what their majors are.

In addition to her teaching, Dr. Butler has reviewed books for both scholarly publications and various newspapers, contributed editorials to the Washington Evening Star and the New York Times and articles to popular journals and either written or edited over twenty-six [End Page 47] books of non-fiction. Her recent novel, The Lucky Piece, was reviewed favorably by Madeleine L'Engle in the New York Times Book Review.

Although Dr. Butler's publications have garnered attention around the world, it is perhaps in the area of children's literature that she has become best known. In addition to founding and editing Children's Literature, she served on the founding board of the Children's Literature Association, established the Children's Literature Divison of the MLA, and, in 1983 and 1985, directed the Institutes on Children's Literature sponsored by the National Endowment or the Humanities. She is consultant on a film series for children for Mort Schindel of Weston Woods Film Studios, and was sent by the National Humanities Institute in Atlanta to conduct teaching workshops at model projects in integration in Chicago and in New York.

It is no wonder that the students crowd Dr. Butler's class. Today, in addition to her own lecture on Medieval children's literature and a lecture by a guest speaker on children's games in Medieval times, a falconer also looses his falcon over the delighted heads of the class, demonstrating an art that is all but lost and recapturing the bravado of ages past. To attend Dr. Butler's class is to journey not only into the world of children's literature but into the many eras in which children have delighted both in books and in reality.

Some Books by Francelia Butler

Butler, Francelia, with Phil Sleeman and Bernard Queenen. 200 Selected Film Chssics for Children of All Ages. Charles Thomas, Publishers, 1984.
———. Masteworks of Children's Literature...

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