Deborah Stevenson, director of the Center for Children’s Books (CCB), will chair a panel and deliver a presentation at the 41st Annual Children’s Literature Association Conference, held on June 18-21 in Columbia, South Carolina. Stevenson is editor of The Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books, one of the nation’s leading children’s book review journals for school and public librarians.
The theme of the conference is “Diverging Diversities: Plurality in Children’s & Young Adult Literature Then and Now.” Presentations will examine the ways in which diversity is addressed in children’s and young adult literature as the demographic makeup of the United States continues to change.
Stevenson will present, “To See Ourselves: Minority Representation Patterns in Contemporary Literature for Youth,” as part of a panel she will chair on June 20, which is titled, “A Distorted Mirror: Issues of Literary, Cultural, and Industry Diversity and Representation.” Panelists include Illinois State University Professor Karen Coats, who is a CCB affiliate and a reviewer for The Bulletin, and GSLIS alumna and Quill Shift Literary Agency founder Ayanna Coleman (MS ’11). Coats will present her paper, “The Neglected Protected: Religious Diversity in YA Literature,” and Coleman will lead a discussion titled, “Diversity and Inclusion: A Publishing Industry Q&A.”
Several other GSLIS affiliates and alumni will be presenting at the conference:
Tad Andracki (MS ’14), CCB communications and outreach coordinator and recent graduate, will present a paper titled, “Of Dirks, Ducks, My Secret Agent Lover Man, Feathered Headdresses, and One Cherokee Bat: Queer Settler Colonialism in Books for Young People,” on June 20.
GSLIS alumna Sarah Park Dahlen (MS ’09, PhD ’09) will present two papers: “Ching Chong Cho Chang: What Happens When You ‘Happen’ to be Asian in the Wizarding World,” and “Teaching Social Justice In and Through Youth Literature: Content, Context and Compassion.”
Elizabeth Hoiem, who will join the GSLIS faculty this fall, will present her paper, “Chartist Children: Rethinking Middle-class Definitions of Play and Work in Early Children’s Literature,” on June 20.
GSLIS Research Fellow Michelle Martin will chair a publishers’ breakout session on June 19 and a second session on June 20 titled, “‘Select well, prepare well, and then go forth and just tell’: Augusta Baker’s Legacy and Collections.”