Dublin Conference: Feb 26, 2011

From Pádraic Whyte...

‘Children’s Literature, Classics, and the City’
Saturday 26th Feb 2011 (9.30am-6.30pm)
The Long Room Hub Trinity College Dublin
A public forum for debate: All welcome

This event highlights the recent designation of Dublin as a UNESCO City of Literature. It celebrates the contribution of children’s literature to culture in the city. The day is intended to get people - authors, illustrators, researchers, teachers, curators, publishers, editors, librarians, and the general public - talking about the role of children's literature in contemporary society. Following the recent controversy regarding a new version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, we feel that this focus on children’s classics is both timely and important.

The day begins with a keynote lecture from Professor Peter Hunt who will talk about editing children's classics for a contemporary readership, followed by a series of roundtable discussions:

‘Classics’; ‘The City’; and ‘Authors, Illustrators’. We have a series of expert contributors lined up and know that it will be a provocative, exciting and stimulating day. We very much hope that anyone interested will come and have their say and help to shape the future of children’s literature, classics and the city.

The occasion also includes the launch of Trinity’s new taught masters’ programme in Children’s Literature, due to come on-stream in September 2011, and a poster session showcasing a wealth of academic work in children’s literature and children’s culture nationwide.

The event takes place under the auspices of the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature and the School of English, Trinity College Dublin.

For more details visit www.isscl.com

New Reference Book in Children's Literature

DESCRIPTION
Children's literature comes from a number of different sources-folklore (folk- and fairy tales), books originally for adults and subsequently adapted for children, and material authored specifically for them-and its audience ranges from infants through middle graders to young adults (readers from about 12 to 18 years old). Its forms include picturebooks, pop-up books, anthologies, novels, merchandising tie-ins, novelizations, and multimedia texts, and its genres include adventure stories, drama, science fiction, poetry, and information books.

The Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature relates the history of children's literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, books, and genres. Some of the most legendary names in all of literature are covered in this important reference, including Hans Christian Anderson, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Beatrix Potter, J.K. Rowling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, and E.B. White.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emer O'Sullivan is professor of English Literature at Leuphana University. She has published widely in both German and English on comparative literature, image studies, children's literature, and translation, and she has received international recognition for her pioneering work in comparative children's literature studies.

More at http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/Singlebook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdatarq=0810860805

SDSU Student Research Symposium (Mar 4-5)

Student Research Symposium

March 4-5, 2011
Aztec Center

GENERAL INFORMATION

The 2011 Student Research Symposium (SRS) is open to undergraduate, master's and doctoral students. Participants will present their original research, scholarship, or creative activities through poster and oral presentations.Ten President's Awards ($500) and two Dean's Awards ($250) from each College will be selected from the oral presentations. Students who earn a President's or Dean's award for work conducted internationally will receive an additional monetary award ($100) and be invited to join Scholars without Borders. Twelve Provost's Awards ($150) will be selected across performance categories for outstanding poster presentations. In addition, the President's Award winners will be selected to represent SDSU at the annual CSU Research Competition. Participants are also invited to attend the reception and award ceremony on Saturday, March 5, 2011.

More at: http://gra.sdsu.edu/grad/research/researchopps.html

Fulbright Visitor from Germany (Jan-July 2011)

Karin Kokorski is PhD candidate and assistant professor at the University of Osnabrück, Germany. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation about “Violence in Children’s Literature and Young Adults’ Fiction.” Her main fields of research are literature for children and young adults, the fantastic, modern fairy tales, and interfaces between literary studies and sociology. Karin is looking forward to being a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at San Diego State University from January till July 2011.

Norwegian Guest 2010-2011: Berit Westergaard Bjørlo

2010-2011 has been a year for visiting researchers. In addition, to professors Joseph Sanders and Karin Kokorski ...

Berit Westergaard Bjørlo has taught in elementary, middle and high school, and is a Lecturer at Faculty of Education, Bergen University College, Norway, where she teaches Scandinavian Literature with an emphasis on Children’s Literature and Culture. This academic year she and her husband live in San Diego, where he is a visiting professor in SDSU's College of Education.

Currently, Bjørlo is working on a PhD project about paintings and poems in Scandinavian picturebooks. The project is part of the Research Program of Art Didactics at Bergen University College. Some of the picture books she analyzes make use of paintings from modern art history, others repurpose poems previously published for an adult audience. Her study examines how the original works of art are ”translated” into the picturebook medium.

Bjørlo looks foirward to working with the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature.

2013 Conference in Netherlands

The International Research Society for Children's Literature Board has accepted the proposal of Lies Wesseling (University of Maastricht) to hold the 2013 Congress in Maastricht. Dates and details will be confirmed over the next few months. The Maastricht congress will be the first in the Netherlands and will highlight the strong research in children's literature across the Netherlands and Belgium. Lies will chair the Congress Committee, which will include Karin Wenz (Maastricht University), Helma van Lierop (Tilburg University), Karen Ghonem-Woets (Tilburg University) and Vanessa Joosen (Antwerp University).
http://www.irscl.com/

Grant$ for Grad Students & Faculty in Child Lit (Feb 1 deadline)

Each year the Children's Literature Association provides grants in two categories--Faculty Research and Graduate Student Research. These are competitive grants that vary in award amount from $500 to $1500, based on the number and needs of the winning applicants. Up to $5,000 is available to be awarded in each category.

Further details about criteria and application procedure for the ChLA Faculty Research Grants can be found at http://www.childlitassn.org/faculty_grant.html

Further details about criteria and application procedure for the Hannah Beiter Graduate Student Research Grants can be found at http://www.childlitassn.org/beiter_grant.html

Applications will be accepted from now through February 1, 2011. Any questions about eligibility of projects or other matters relating to the grants should be directed to the Grants Committee Chair, Susan Stan, at stan1sm@cmich.edu or to the ChLA Administrator, Kathy Kiessling, at kkiessling@childlitassn.org.

Panelists Wanted (Virginia in June)

To reflect this year's ChLA conference theme of Revolt, Rebellion, Protest: Change and Insurrection in Children's Literature, we are seeking five panelists to participate in a roundtable discussion of Teaching Controversial Children's and YA Literature. Potential topics could include personal experiences with censorship, such as being a part of a book challenge committee; approaches to teaching provocative books; overcoming student resistance to specific books because of subject matter; dealing with lack of departmental support for teaching certain controversial texts; successful discussions of censorship in the classroom; hosting Banned Books Week events at your school, etc.

All conference attendees are invited to participate in the event, but if you are interested in being considered as one of our five roundtable discussants, please email to me a brief description of your interest and expertise in Teaching Controversial Children's and YA Literature.

Please note that this year the syllabus exchange will be a post-conference breakfast meeting on Sunday, June 26th, 2011.

Dr. Jennifer M. Miskec, Assistant Professor of Children's and Young Adult Literature English Graduate Program Coordinator Director, Children's Literature Minor Department of English and Modern Languages http://www.longwood.edu/staff/miskecjm/

Lissa Paul & Children's Books Before the Great War

As the 100th anniversary of the First World War approaches, the UK’s Leverhulme Trust is funding three international conferences to study children’s literature and culture in the years leading up to the War. Lissa Paul is organizing the Canadian conference...The conferences—part of the international research project Approaching War—will take place in Australia, Canada and England in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The Australian conference, located at the University of Technology Sydney, will be in November or early December of this year.

More at: http://www.niagarathisweek.com/community/education/article/928970--ww1-babies-primed-to-fight

UCLA Feb 6: Documentary Film: Writers & Illustrators

The following debuts at UCLA on February 6. See:
http://childrenslitproject.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/west-coast-premiere-at-ucla-february-6/

upcoming film on children’s literature, Library of the Early Mind, directed and produced by Edward J. Delaney and co-produced by Steven Withrow... “We wanted to do a film that would be interesting to people who may not have an interest in children’s literature,” says Withrow. “We wanted to describe how the writers and illustrators become artists and how these personal experiences really were the crucibles of the art they created.” Among the experiences he cites are: David Small’s difficult childhood, described in Stitches; Jack Gantos’s imprisonment as a young adult for smuggling hashish; and the burning of Nancy Garden’s 1982 novel, Annie on My Mind.

The three—Small, Gantos, and Garden—are among the 40 authors and illustrators interviewed by Withrow and Delaney for the film. “Because we were limited in terms of money, we confined ourselves for the most part to artists in New York City, western Massachusetts, and northern New England,” Withrow says. Not that that was a hardship given the talent pool in the Northeast, from Jeff Kinney to Lois Lowry and Chris Van Allsburg. In addition, Delaney and Withrow interviewed literary critics, including Roger Sutton, Anita Silvey, and Gopnik.... more at Publishers' Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/43774-new-film-on-children-s-book-authors-and-illustrators.html

See interesting video trailer and other info at film's web site:

http://childrenslitproject.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/trailer-for-library-of-the-early-mind/

Marianne Paluso on: Spiritual Themes in Disney's "Tangled"

Former M.A. student Marianne Paluso interviews principals about the making of "Tangled" and traces spiritial themes in this Disney film:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=1449

New Book: IRISH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND CULTURE

Routledge Press offers ....

IRISH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND CULTURE
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON CONTEMPORARY WRITING
EDITED BY VALERIE COGHLAN AND KEITH O’SULLIVAN
ISBN: 978‐0‐415‐87789‐3
Publication Date: 21 December 2010
Irish Children’s Literature and Culture looks critically at Irish writing for children from the
1980s to the present, examining the work of many writers and illustrators and engaging
with major genres, forms, and issues, including the gothic, the speculative, picturebooks,
ethnicity, and globalization. It contextualizes contemporary Irish children’s literature in
relation to Irish mythology and earlier writings, as well as in relation to Irish writing for
adults, thereby demonstrating the complexity of this fascinating area.
The contributors to the volume examine a range of texts in relation to contemporary
literary and cultural theory, and children’s literature internationally, raising provocative
questions about the future of the topic. Irish Children’s Literature and Culture is essential
reading for those interested in Irish literature, culture, sociology, childhood, and children’s
literature.
VALERIE COGHLAN, Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin, is a librarian and
lecturer. She is a former co‐editor of Bookbird: An International Journal of Children’s
Literature. She has published widely on Irish children’s literature and co‐edited several
books on the topic. She is a former board member of the IRSCL, and a founder member of
the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature, Children’s Books Ireland, and IBBY
Ireland.
KEITH O’SULLIVAN lectures in English at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin.
He is a founder member of the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature, a former
member of the board of directors of Children’s Books Ireland, and current chair of the
Children’s Books Ireland/Bisto Book of the Year Awards. He has published on the works of
Philip Pullman and Emily Brontë.
CONTENTS
Mythologizing Ireland
CIARA NÍ BHROIN
Borderlands: Dead Bog and Living Landscape
ÉILÍS NÍ DHUIBHNE
Cleaning up the Mess? The Child and Nation in Historical Fiction Set between 1890 and 1922
SUSAN CAHILL
‘What Foot Does He Dig With?’ Inscriptions of Religion and Cultural Identity
VALERIE COGHLAN
Young Adult Fiction and Youth Culture
PÁDRAIC WHYTE
Fictionalizing Families
AMANDA PIESSE
‘Binding with Briars’: Romanticizing the Child
KEITH O’SULLIVAN
Evil Innocence: The Child and Adult in Fiction
JARLATH KILLEEN
‘Walking . . . into the Night’: Growing Up with the Gothic
ANNE MARKEY
Contemplating Otherness: Imagining the Future in Speculative Fiction
PATRICIA KENNON
Meanings and Means: Children’s Poetry Now
MARY SHINE THOMPSON
Picturebooks that Transcend Boundaries
SANDRA L BECKETT
Insularity and Internationalism: Between Local Production and the Global Marketplace
EMER O’SULLIVAN

1/15/11 Deadline: ChLA Conference (Virginia 6/11)

Dear ChLA 2011 Conference Paper or Panel Proposer:

Just a reminder that the deadline for submitting paper and panel proposals is January 15, 2011; submissions should be sent electronically to . The detailed call for papers appears in your fall ChLA Newsletter and is readily available on the Hollins website (see: http://www.hollins.edu/grad/childlit/chla2011/papers.htm). Everyone is eagerly looking forward to assembling a terrific program for the conference June 23-25, 2011 at Hollins University.

Please make sure that your submission includes full contact information that includes a mailing address so you can be notified. If you submitted a proposal between Oct. 17 and Nov. 1 and have not received an acknowledgment, please resend your electronic proposal. There was a two-week technical glitch that may have caused a problem. We hope to be in touch with submitters with the committee's decision by February 20, 2011.

Sincerely,
Kathryn Graham
Paper Selection Committee Chair

Newbery, Caldecott Awards and...

Just a recap from the awards announcements here at ALA Midwinter:

Newbery Medal - Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
Caldecott Medal - A Sick Day for Amos McGee illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Printz Award - Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Coretta Scott King Award - One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Laura Ingalls Wilder Award - Tomie de Paola
Margaret A. Edwards Award - Sir Terry Pratchett
Arbuthnot Lecture selection - Peter Sis
Pura Belpre Award went to SDSU alum Pam Munoz Ryan for The Dreamer
Geisel Award went to Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee

For more awardees and honor books, see the ALA Youth Media Awards site at ala.org/yma

Best, Linda Salem

Oz Under the Sea: Conference July 2010 Pacific Grove, CA

The Winkie Convention Friday July 8 to Sunday July 10, 2011 Asilomar Conference Center Pacific Grove, Cal fornia 93950 JOIN US for the 47TH annual Winkie Convention as we journey Under the Sea to celebrate all things oceanic in and around L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz. This year’s programming chairman, David Maxine, invites you to come and celebrate the 100TH anniversary of Baum’s underwater fairytale The Sea Fairies and the 80TH anniversary of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Pirates in Oz. What could be better than pirates and mermaids in Oz? Our guests of honor will be Tommy Kovac, writer of the acclaimed...

More at: http://hungrytigerpress.com/winkies_2011_registration.pdf

San Diego, the Capitol of Children's Literature

"San Diego has quietly emerged as a hotbed of children’s literature — a place where top authors, academics and critics live.

That reputation will be bolstered this weekend when winners of the genre’s two most prestigious annual prizes — the Newbery and the Caldecott medals — are decided at a national convention here...."

Read more in John Wilkens' essay "All eyes in children's book world on San Diego," in the San Diego Union Tribune:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jan/06/all-eyes-in-childrens-book-world-on-san-diego/

YA Job (Ohio)

The College of Mount St. Joseph invites qualified applications for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the Division of Education to begin August 2011. The successful candidate will have a background in secondary/adolescent to young adult education, with expertise in one of the four key content areas (mathematics, science, language arts, or history/social studies). Preferences will be given to candidates with a background in reading or literacy.

Candidates must have completed a doctoral degree in education or a related field, with teaching experience at the secondary level (grades 7-12). In addition, candidates should have a proven record of undergraduate or graduate teaching experience. The successful candidate will be expected to teach adolescent and young adult content and methods courses, as well as reading coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Additional responsibilities include teaching a course in your specific area of expertise, maintaining an ongoing program of research, academic advising, mentoring of graduate research, and some evening and distance-learning teaching.

For a complete announcement and the application process, please visit www.msj.edu/employment. EOE.