1
From left: Dr. Stephanie D. Reynolds, Jack Gantos, Dan Yaccarino, Selene Castrovilla, and Mercedes Hopewell
The McConnell Conference this year was a great time! The conference began with breakout sessions including a presentation by Mary Lou White, Tyler Anderson, and Stephanie Sawyer on this year’s Young Adult Youth Media Awards. Dan Yaccarinno kicked off the conference with a breakout session where he answered the audience’s questions about his fabulous illustrations. Meggan Conway gave a breakout session on how to find multicultural literature for all children and Krista King-Oaks and Pamela Jayne geeked out with graphic novels. During the first round of breakout ses-
sions, the McConnell Conference sponsored its first SLIS Student Poster Session. Jessica Herrington, Desireé Perry, Heather Burke, and Danielle Gabbard presented an amazing poster session on marketing information to youth. On Saturday Heather Burke presented her poster session on her “Artists’ Books Access Project.” Thank you to all the participants from SLIS who contributed to the McConnell Conference’s first poster session. Friday night was concluded with the Toy Terhune Lecture featuring the author of the Joey Pigza and Jack Adrift books, the amazing Jack Gantos. The