Children’s Literature Association
NEWSLETTER
President’s Message
Volume 20 | Issue 1 Spring 2013
In This
ISSUE: President’s Message.....................................1 Call for Nominations for the Anne Devereaux Jordan Award.....................1 2013 ChLA Conference “Play and Risk in Children’s and Young Adult Literature”.........2 2014 ChLA Conference “Diverging Diversities”..................................3 2013 ChLA Award Recipients........................4 2013 Anne Devereaux Jordan Recipient........5 2013 ChLA Grant Recipients.........................5 Results of the 2013 ChLA Election................5 Guaranteed Sessions at the 2014 MLA Conference..................................6 2015 MLA Session Call.................................6 2014 ChLA Conference Call for Papers..........7 JHUP Announcement....................................8
Anne Devereaux Jordan Award Call for Nominations The Anne Devereaux Jordan Award is intended to honor the lifetime achievement of an individual whose scholarship and service have had a significant impact on the field of children‘s literature scholarship. The award is not restricted to ChLA members or to those whose work has benefited the Association specifically. The award may be given posthumously. To nominate someone for the Anne Devereaux Jordan Award, send a letter that explains the person’s accomplishments and contributions to children‘s literature scholarship to committee chair Martha Hixon (martha.hixon@mtsu.edu). If possible, include the nominee’s current vita with the nomination letter. Nominations must be received no later than October 1, 2013. Although nominees are considered annually, there may be years in which no award is given.
by Claudia Nelson Inspired by recent research I’ve been doing into books of golden deeds as a mini-genre within children’s literature, I’m thinking about golden deeds being done within the Children’s Literature Association itself. The classic literary golden deed has a tendency to bring about the doer’s death or at least mutilation, and I’m happy to say that these are not the outcomes we’re seeing here. Even so, our golden-deed-doers (you catch the Wizard of Oz film reference, I know) are sacrificing considerable time and energy. This is the time of year when your president’s mailbox fills up with messages about ChLA award winners, grant applications approved, and election results. All these winners deserve our hearty congratulations for their achievements—and all these pieces of happy news also depend upon the golden deeds of many committee members who put in the many hours necessary to evaluate, discuss, agree and disagree, and arrive at a conclusion. Meanwhile, officers, board members, editors and associate editors, and members of the many other committees upon whose energies ChLA depends are doing golden deeds in areas ranging from internationalization to diversification, membership to money, publicity to publications. And speaking of elections, one might note here that all of you who were willing to see your names appear on the ballot were vying for the opportunity to give our organization the aforementioned time and energy, all without a hope of converting your service into a well-paid lobbying gig later on.* Sounds like a golden deed to me. Prominent among golden deeds that get done for this organization is the organizing of our annual conference. This year it’s hosted by the University of Southern Mississippi and to be held in Biloxi, Mississippi, with an optional side trip to visit the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection, now the home of the ChLA Archives. Many of you share with me fond memories of the 1991 conference also hosted by USM—I hasten to add that we were children when we attended it, or perhaps are remembering the occasion from a past life. But even if you weren’t there, I’m confident that you share my feelings of pleasurable anticipation at enjoying USM’s hospitality once again, and my eagerness to thank in person our conference coordinators, Kay Harris, Ellen Ruffin, and Eric Tribunella, and the rest of their team for their golden deeds in planning, selecting papers, and expertly performing the plethora of other tasks large and small that putting a conference together requires. If you haven’t yet registered for the conference, whose theme is “Play and Risk in Children’s and Young Adult Literature,” you can do so at chlaconference.org/registration. Don’t forget to make your hotel reservations at the same time, using the contact and group code information provided in the online instructions. I look forward to seeing you in Biloxi for an occasion that will, I’m sure, feel much more like Play than like Risk. Warmly,
Claudia *Though if you do see opportunities in the latter direction, feel free to share this information.
Volume 20 | Issue 1
2013 ChLA Conference “Play and Risk in Children’s and Young Adult Literature” June 13-15, 2013, University of Southern Mississippi The 40th Annual Children’s Literature Association Conference, hosted by the University of Southern Mississippi, will be held at the IP Resort in Biloxi. Located on Biloxi’s Back Bay and just minutes by trolley from the Gulf of Mexico and downtown highlights such as the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, the IP includes 1,000 hotel rooms and seven restaurants and cafes. Conference attendees can fly into the Gulfport-Biloxi Airport and enjoy the distinctive landscape and culture of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. Classic and contemporary works for young people often represent children or young adults playing games or taking chances, and with Biloxi’s thriving gaming industry as our backdrop, the 2013 Conference Committee has selected the theme “Play and Risk in Children’s and Young Adult (YA) Literature.” ChLA members will address variations on this theme, such as games and game theory, dramatic plays, stylistic or formal play, children at play, chance, risktaking, at-risk youth, sports, and winning and losing in children’s literature and culture. Dr. Jerry Griswold, Professor Emeritus and the former director of the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at San Diego State University, will deliver the Francelia Butler Lecture. Author of seven books, including Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America’s Classic Children’s Books (1992) and Feeling Like a Kid: Childhood and Children’s Literature (2006), Dr. Griswold has repeatedly addressed the complex psychological lives of children at play or at risk in children’s literature and has been a member of the Children’s Literature Dr. Jerry Griswold Association for many years. The 2013 Phoenix Picture Book Honor Award will be presented to Denise Fleming for her 1993 illustrated book, In the Small, Small Pond. Keven Henkes, who is not able to attend the conference, has been selected as the Phoenix Picture Book Award winner for Owen (1993). Gaye Hiçyilmaz will receive the Phoenix Award for The Frozen Waterfall (1993).
Denise Fleming
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Conference attendees are invited to visit the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection on the Hattiesburg campus of the University of Southern Mississippi on Sunday, June 16. A bus will depart from the IP at 8:30 AM and return to Gulfport-Biloxi by 3:00 PM. Attendees can register for the trip when they register for the conference.
Gaye Hiçyilmaz
ChLA Newsletter
2014 ChLA Conference “Diverging Diversities” June 19-21, 2014, University of South Carolina The University of South Carolina will host the 41st annual Children’s Literature Association Conference in Columbia, South Carolina, June 19-21, 2014. Housed in the downtown Columbia Marriott, conference attendees will be in walking distance of Richland Library— whose children’s room features Sendak’s Wild Things as life-sized public art—the South Carolina Center for Children’s Books and Literacy, the Columbia Museum of Art, the Nickelodeon Theatre, the State Capitol, and the University of South Carolina’s historic horseshoe. The conference theme, “Diverging Diversities,” echoes the legacy of Augusta Baker, librarian, advocate for children’s literature, and USC’s Storyteller-inResidence for 14 years. Through mentoring countless authors and artists such as Maurice Sendak, Ezra Jack Keats, Tom Feelings, and Anita and Arnold Lobel, Dr. Baker helped to transform what in 1965 Nancy Larrick famously characterized as the “All-White World of Children’s Literature.” By the time of Dr. Baker’s death in 1998, the world of children’s books had begun to reflect the diversity of the children reading them. Conference attendees will be able to choose from a full schedule of themed events. Those who arrive on Wednesday may participate in a “Cocky’s Reading Express” outreach program. Since 2005, the University’s mascot, Cocky, has made weekly visits to libraries and schools throughout the state, distributing more than 50,000 books in all 46 counties to K-2nd graders in an effort to improve literacy. Cocky and the USC students who accompany him ask the participating children to take “Cocky’s Promise” to “read, read, read” the book he has just given them. On Wednesday evening, Columbia’s Nickelodeon Theatre will screen treasures from the University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collection, a film archive boasting more than 6,000 hours of material, including rare footage of local children at work and play.
Thursday evening’s New Member Reception will showcase the University of South Carolina’s Hollings Library, home to the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Here, attendees will have the opportunity to learn about the Augusta Baker Collection, the Historical Children’s Literature Collection, and the History of Education in America Collection, and to tour the (closed) stacks and vault, where the rarest materials are kept, as well as browse an exhibit designed especially for the conference. ChLA members will also be the first to receive details of a newly established USC Children’s Literature Research Fellowship, to be launched in 2014. Saturday evening’s “An Evening with Anita Lobel” invites ChLA members to Columbia’s world-class public library for a reception, children’s performance, lecture, and book signing by author and artist Anita Lobel. The exhibit “All the World’s a Stage,” on loan from the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Texas, will be displayed at both Richland Library and the Columbia Museum of Art (located just across the street). Saturday’s awards banquet at the Marriott will, as always, feature presentations by winners Anita Lobel of the Phoenix Awards. The children’s literature and culture faculty in the University of South Carolina’s Departments of English, Art, and Languages, Literatures & Culture, the School of Library and Information Science, and the College of Education are delighted to welcome you to Columbia in 2014. We feel confident that attendees will enjoy the lively arts and entertainment of the Vista (www.vistacolumbia. com), the city’s Southern-inflected cuisine, and of course, the “famously hot” Columbia sunshine.
Spread the Word About Do you have a web site? A Facebook page? A Jacketflap.com page? If so, the ChLA Publicity Committee asks that you help us get the word out to scholars, librarians, teachers, and writers about our organization by adding a link to ChLA on your page.
Our web site can be found at: http://www.childlitassn.org/ 3
Volume 20 | Issue 1
2013 ChLA Award Recipients The following Association awards will be presented at the 2013 conference banquet: Anne Devereaux Jordan Award Winner: John Cech
Article Award Winner: “Clockwork: Philip Pullman’s Posthuman Fairy Tale,” by Richard Gooding published in Children’s Literature in Education 42.4 (2011): 308-324
Book Award Winner: Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood and Race from Slavery to Civil Rights by Robin Bernstein, New York University Press, 2011 Honor book: Freud in Oz: At the Intersections of Psychoanalysis and Children’s Literature by Kenneth B. Kidd, University of Minnesota Press, 2011 Recommended book: History and Construction of the Child in Early British Children’s Literature by Jackie C. Horne, Ashgate Press, 2011
Carol Gay Award
Edited Book Award
Winner: “A Magic Made of Stories: Fantastic Empowerment in the Works of E. Nesbit,” by Elissa Myers sponsored by Teya Rosenberg (Texas State University, San Marcos)
Winner: The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Literature, edited by Julia Mickenberg and Lynne Vallone, Oxford University Press, 2011
Honor essay: “Bilbo Beyond Gender: The Trans-Gender Took,” by Katie Abbott sponsored by Mary Lenard (University of Wisconsin-Parkside)
Honor book: Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden: A Children’s Classic at 100, edited by Jackie C. Horne and Joe Sutliff Sanders,Scarecrow Press, 2011
Graduate Student Essay Awards
Phoenix Award
Ph.D. level award: “Pygmalion Revisited: Aesthetics and Agency in Louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl,” by Marilyn Bloss Koester sponsored by Lorinda B. Cohoon (University of Memphis)
Winner: The Frozen Waterfall by Gaye Hiçyilmaz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993; reissued by Faber and Faber in 1998)
Master’s level award: “Some Writer, Some Friend: Charlotte and The Elements of Style,” by Rachel Rickard sponsored by Annette Wannamaker (Eastern Michigan University)
Honor book: Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary by Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic Press, 1993)
Phoenix Picture Book Award Winner: Owen by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow, 1993) Honor book: In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming (Henry Holt and Co., 1993)
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ChLA Newsletter
2013 Anne Devereaux Jordan Recipient: John Cech The Children’s Literature Association is pleased to announce that Professor John Cech is the 2013 recipient of the Anne Devereaux Jordan Award, given in recognition of “significant contributions in scholarship and/or service to the field of children’s literature.” Professor Cech’s scholarship includes Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak (1994) and Imagination and Innovation: The Story of Weston Woods (2009), among other projects. A writer of children’s fiction, plays, and picture books, he founded the Center for Children’s Literature and Culture at the University of Florida, where he has served as a faculty member since 1976. The radio program he initiated in 2001, Recess!, as well as his commentaries for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, have disseminated children’s literature to a wide audience, as have his articles, essays, and reviews in such publications as The New York Times Book Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Horn Book Magazine, and USA Today, among others. An active member of the Children’s Literature Association since its initial creation, Professor Cech served as President and in many other capacities. A consultant for the MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, he also has judged the New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards; he was a member of the nominating committee for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. In 1992, he was honored with the Chandler Award for his contributions to the field of children’s literature. We congratulate Professor Cech on this much-deserved recognition, and we look forward to celebrating his accomplishments at the 2013 Children’s Literature Association conference in Mississippi.
2013 ChLA Grant Recipients Faculty Research Grants Jen Cadwallader, Randolph-Macon College Project: “The Economic Child in the Golden Age” Gregory Bryan, Grinnell College Project: “Master Storyteller: The Life and Works of Paul Goble”
Hannah Beiter Graduate Student Research Grants Jessica Isaac, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Pittsburgh Naomi Lesley, Ph.D. Candidate, The George Washington University
Paula T. Connolly, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Project: Stories of Slavery, Stories for Children
Anuja Madan, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Florida
Joe Sutliff Sanders, Kansas State University Project: Comparative comics study focusing on Tintin
Shawna McDermott, Ph.D. Candidate, Texas A&M University
Eric Tribunella, University of Southern Mississippi Project: Scholarly edition of Edward Stevenson’s Left to Themselves
International Sponsorship Grant
Anastasia Ulanowicz, University of Florida Project: “Representations of Nationhood in Post-Independence Ukrainian Children’s Literature”
Distinguished scholars for a special focus panel on Croatian children’s literature: Berislav Majhut, University of Zagreb Željka Flegar, University of Osijek Smiljana Narancic Kovac, University of Zagreb
Results of the 2013 ChLA Election of Officers, Board and Committee Members President Claudia Mills Vice President Kara Keeling Executive Board June Cummins Joel Chaston Christine Doyle Anne Devereaux Jordan Award Committee Roberta Seelinger Trites Leona Fisher Article Award Committee Lynne Vallone Thomas Crisp Book Award Committee Liz Thiel Erica Hateley Diversity Committee Althea Tait Claudia Pearson Edited Book Award Committee Lorinda B. Cohoon Donna White Grants Committee Sara Schwebel Mary Jeanette Moran International Committee Michelle Superle Phoenix Picture Book Award Committee Ellen Ruffin Anna Panszczyk
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Volume 20 | Issue 1
Guaranteed Sessions at the 2014 MLA Conference “Deliver Us to Normal: Children’s Literature and the Midwest” Program arranged by the Children’s Literature Association. Presiding: Katharine Slater, University of California, San Diego
3. “Randall Jarrell’s Impossible Children,” Stephen Burt, Harvard University Respondent: Richard Flynn, Georgia Southern University
1. “The American Urban Jungle: Tarzan of the Apes and Chicago,” Michelle Ann Abate, Hollins University 2. “Coming of Age in a Divided City: Navigating Chicago Cultures in Sandra Cisneros’s Poetic Bildungsroman and Veronica Roth’s Dystopian Fiction,” Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Yale University 3. “When Myth Becomes Truth: Adolescent Identity in Depression Era Kansas,” Jill Coste, San Diego State University 4. “Environmental Conservation and Racial Purity in the Fiction of Gene Stratton-Porter,” Sarah Clere, The Citadel “Randall Jarrell at 100” Program arranged by the Children’s Literature Division of the MLA. Presiding: Chamutal Noimann, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York 1. “The Child Is the Animal in Randall Jarrell’s Animal Family,” Patricia Oman, Hastings College 2. “Jarrell the Heroic Reader,” Molly McQuade, ALA Columnist
“Diaries of the Young Girl: The Craft of Female Selfhood” Program arranged by the Children’s Literature Division of the MLA. Presiding: June Cummins, San Diego State University, and Rocio Davis, City University of Hong Kong 1. “Writing to Survive: Child-Writing Characterization in Sade Adeniran’s Imagine This,” Suzanne Ondrus, University of Connecticut 2. “Constructing the Self: Pocket Diaries as Discipline in 19th Century America,” Martha Sledge, Marymount Manhattan College 3. “‘Okay! Fine! You can read it!’: Memory, Adolescence, and Belonging in Lauren Weinstein’s Girl Stories,” Tahneer Oksman, Marymount Manhattan College 4. “Witness, Re-Vision, and the Constraints of Child Authorship in Nadja Halilbegovic’s My Childhood Under Fire: A Sarajevo Diary,” Anastasia Ulanowicz, University of Florida
MLA Session Call - January 8-11, 2015, Vancouver Each year, the Children‘s Literature Association is guaranteed one session at the MLA and can submit proposals for up to two more.* If you would like to propose a session topic, by June 10, please send the ChLA/MLA Liaison (Jennifer Miskec: miskecjm@longwood.edu): (1) a short description of your proposal idea, and, if relevant, (2) the name of another MLA-affiliated entity (allied organization, division, or discussion group) you plan to seek as a co-sponsor. The ChLA Board will examine the proposals and select the top three (one guaranteed, plus two additional**) for submission to the 2015 MLA Convention. *If ChLA chooses to submit two additional sessions, one of those sessions must be a collaborative session with another entity (division, discussion group, allied organization, etc.). • • •
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MLA divisions: www.mla.org/danddg MLA allied and affiliate divisions: www.mla.org/orginfo_directory MLA discussion groups: www.mla.org/discussion_groups
**The proposals for the two additional sessions are not guaranteed and will be reviewed by the MLA Program Committee. Please see the Procedures for Organizing Meetings on the MLA web site: http://mla.org/conv_procedures for further details.
ChLA Newsletter
CALL FOR PAPERS Children’s Literature Association Conference June 19-21, 2014 “Diverging Diversities: Plurality in Children’s & Young Adult Literature Then and Now”
Augusta Baker, librarian, activist, “America’s First Lady of Storytelling,” and lover of owls, served as the University of South Carolina’s Storyteller-inResidence from 1980 to 1994. Baker arrived in Columbia after a momentous career at the New York Public Library. Initially hired as a librarian for the 135th Street Harlem Branch, Baker rose to become Coordinator of Children’s Services for the entire NYPL system, the first African American to hold such a position of leadership. Through tireless advocacy for children and their needs, Baker raised awareness of “the denigrating picture of the black child in books that seemed to be among the most popular publications.” Thanks to the efforts of Baker, Charlemae Hill Rollins, Henrietta Smith, Pura Belpré, Joseph Bruchac and countless others, the children’s books circulating today no longer represent an “all-white” world, as Nancy Larrick described the genre in her Saturday Review article of 1965. Yet today’s books still fall short of reflecting the diversity of the U.S. population and of portraying the lives of children growing up in a complex, global society. The 2014 Children’s Literature Association Conference invites papers that consider the diversification of the genre—and its limits—both within the U.S. and internationally. The most common understanding of “diversity” in children’s literature relates to ethnic and/or racial diversity. This conference will consider the concept more broadly to include disabilities (differing abilities), gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic class, and region (especially depictions of the South in children’s books). Further, it will consider the ways in which a shifting U.S. population and the effects of deindustrialization, migration to the Sunbelt, and so forth, have influenced children’s literature. Other topics to be considered include historical conceptions of plurality, historical innovations in form, adaptations and re-adaptations of texts, the internationalization of the children’s literature market, and how the “prizing” of children’s and young adult literature has fostered or frustrated diversity. Though certainly not limited to these ideas, essays might address: • The meaning and significance of diversity in children’s and YA literature in the 21st century • Innovations in form and aesthetics that reflect diverse populations • How texts by and about social and cultural minorities have shaped mainstream children’s and YA literature • The impact of bilingual children’s books and books in translation • Regional and international influences in children’s and YA literature • The role of visual images in diversifying children’s literature • The social and cultural influence of diversity in non-book media for children and young adults • The individual and instructional forces advocating for, and posing obstacles to, continued diversification of children’s literature • Projections of how recent developments in the field may continue to diversify the genre • The work and literary legacy of Augusta Baker, a pioneer in African American children’s literature and the University of South Carolina’s Storyteller-in-Residence from 1980 to 1994 • The life and work of Anita Lobel, a featured artist at the conference
Essays considering all aspects of plurality within children’s and young adult literature and culture will be given highest priority, but all essays on the genre will be considered. Please submit 250-word abstracts or panel descriptions between October 15, 2013, and January 15, 2014. For more information visit www.chlaconference.org.
Essays considering all aspects of plurality within Children’s and Young Adult Literature and culture will be given highest priority, but all essays on the genre will be considered. Please submit 250-word abstracts or panel descriptions between October 15, 2013 and January 15, 2014. www.chlaconference.org.
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Children’s Literature Association 1301 W. 22nd Street | Suite 202 Oak Brook, IL 60523
ChLA is pleased to announce that Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) now handles membership records. JHUP has published the association’s journals for many years now, and we are glad to continue and grow our partnership. You can contact the JHUP Journal Division for help with anything from updating your address to renewing your membership.
The Johns Hopkins University Press Journal Division PO Box 19966 Baltimore, MD 21211-0966 TEL: (800) 548-1784 FAX: (410) 516-3866 jrnlcirc@press.jhu.edu 8
Communicating with ChLA!
www.childlitassn.org
ChLA Administration:
Carly Armstrong (carly@childlitassn.org) ChLA | 1301 W. 22nd Street | Suite 202 Oak Brook, IL 60523 USA Phone: 630-571-4520 fax: 708-876-5598
On the Internet: www.childlitassn.org In Print: ChLA Quarterly Editor:
Katharine Capshaw Smith (chlaq@uconn.edu) Children’s Literature Association Quarterly Dept. of English | 215 Glenbrook Road | Unit 4025, University of Connecticut | Storrs, CT 06269
Children’s Literature Editor:
Michelle Ann Abate (child.lit@hollins.edu) English Department | Hollins University P. O. Box 9677 | Roanoke, VA 24020
ChLA Newsletter Co-Editors:
Ramona Caponegro (rcaponeg@emich.edu) Cathlena Martin (cmartin16@montevallo.edu)