Deborah Stevenson, assistant professor and director of The Center for Children’s Books at GSLIS, will participate in several events in the coming weeks.
On March 30, Stevenson will deliver the 22nd annual Lois Lenski Children’s Literature Lecture at Illinois State University. Her talk will be titled, “The Elephants in the Room: The Challenges of Diversity in Youth Literature.”
Abstract: This year marks the 50th anniversary of Nancy Larrick’s “The All-White World of Children’s Books,” the article that first moved the diversity discussion into the public spotlight. And still and again diversity—by which we mostly mean the lack of it—remains a huge topic in the world of children’s literature. Why hasn’t there been more progress since the 1960s, and what obstacles have been standing in its way? Do we have a definition of success beyond “not where we are now”? And why does it matter, and what does that say about children’s literature?
On April 10, Stevenson will speak on a panel at the University of Chicago's GradUCon, an annual event that provides a forum for graduate students and postdocs to explore potential career paths through a day of events and networking. She will discuss hybrid administrative, research, and teaching careers in academia.
Stevenson will participate in the Texas Library Association Summit on Diversity in Youth Publishing, held during the Texas Library Association Conference on April 14 in Austin, Texas. She is one of an invited group of more than thirty authors, librarians, publishers, reviewers, and vendors dealing in materials for children and teens. The participants will collaborate on strategies to put more diverse books into the hands of young people.
In addition to directing The Center for Children’s Books, Stevenson is the editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, one of the nation's leading children's book review journals for school and public librarians. Her research interests include children's literature and contemporary culture, history of children's literature, and genre theory. She has published articles in The Horn Book Magazine, The Lion and the Unicorn, and Children’s Literature Association Quarterly. Currently, she is the principal investigator of Closing the App Gap, an IMLS-funded project investigating the benefits of blending technology with traditional summer reading programs.