Blowing Our Own Horn: What We Did this Summer

CCB director and BCCB editor Deborah Stevenson attended the Children’s Literature Association Conference in Columbia, South Carolina, June 18–21, where she presented her paper, “To See Ourselves: Minority Representation Patterns in Contemporary Literature for Youth,” as part of a panel that she also chaired. The panel included presentations from BCCB reviewer and Illinois State University professor Karen Coats (“The Neglected Protected: Religious Diversity in YA Literature”) and GSLIS and CCB alum Ayanna Coleman (“Diversity and Inclusion: A Publishing Industry Q&A”). Stevenson also attended the American Library Association annual conference in Las Vegas, June 26-July 1, where she joined the rest of the Scott O’Dell Award committee to celebrate the most recent winner, Kirkpatrick Hill, for Bo at Ballard Creek.

Kate McDowell, CCB affiliate and GSLIS interim assistant dean for student affairs and associate professor, gave an invited talk at the International Symposium on Library Services for Children and Young Adults in Seoul, South Korea, June 19–20. McDowell’s presentation, “Exploring the App Gap,” discussed the planning phase and early implementation of “Closing the App Gap,” a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, for which she serves as co-PI with principal investigator Deborah Stevenson, CCB Director and BCCB editor. In collaboration with the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library, the team is investigating use of tablets and tablet-based apps in summer reading programs for children in underserved populations to help mitigate summer reading setback and the lack of access to technology.

Carol Tilley, CCB affiliate and GSLIS assistant professor, shared her expertise in comics and comics history in several panels and presentations at Comic-Con International in San Diego, CA, July 24–27. Tilley gave talks on her research of Fredric Wertham and joined several other experts in discussing the use of graphic novels in both libraries and the classroom. She also gave the keynote address at the 2014 Comics and Medicine Conference at Johns Hopkins University on June 27. Her lecture was titled “Private Reading, Public Health: Exploring Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s Comics Legacy.” Tilley also appeared virtually on a panel, “Comics and Censorship,” at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC, June 20–22. In May, Tilley published an article in the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults titled, “Comics: A Once-Missed Opportunity.”

Elizabeth Hoiem will join the GSLIS faculty this fall as an assistant professor teaching and conducting research in youth services. She also presented her paper, “Chartist Children: Rethinking Middle-Class Definitions of Play and Work in Early Children’s Literature,” at the Children’s Literature Association Conference in Columbia, South Carolina, June 18–21.

CCB affiliates Georgeann Burch, GSLIS School Library Media Coordinator, and Karla Lucht, GSLIS PhD student, led a workshop on “American Literary Resources for the Classroom” on June 25 for the Global Institute for Secondary Educators, organized by the Center for Global Studies and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Burch and Lucht introduced a variety of U.S. literature appropriate for social studies, history, and English classrooms to secondary teachers from around the world.

CCB Outreach and Communications Coordinator and BCCB reviewer Tad Andracki co-presented “A Queer Library Alliance for Young People: Using Books with LGBTQ Content” with GSLIS alum Rae-Anne Montague at the biennial Conference on Literature and Hawaii’s Children in Honolulu, June 5–7.