The College of Education at the University of Illinois sponsored the first ever Youth Literature Festival on on October 4th, 2008. The Youth Literature Festival celebrated the value of literature in the lives of youth. Many nationally known authors (as well as emerging young authors), illustrators, poets, and storytellers participated in the various Festival events. All events were free and open to the public and were be held at various locations across the Champaign-Urbana community.
The Center for Children's Books hosted booths in the Resource Tent and the Children's Activity Area. We gave away balloons, helped kids make book marks, and sponsored a free raffle along with a variety of other activities. Prizes for the free raffle included totebags, puppets, free admission to the CCB PreSale, a free subscription to the Bulletin and free copies of past Gryphon Award winners.
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 The book mark making activity was a hit! |
 Kids waited patiently to hear their name called in our raffle. No one went home empty handed! |
 Children let us know who (or what!) was their favorite character. Top favorites were Junie B. Jones and Matilda for older kids and Thomas the Train and Rainbow Fish from younger kids. |
In September we welcomed children's book historian Leonard S. Marcus, to Champaign-Urbana , and the University of Illinois . His MillerComm presentation, "A New Deal for the Nursery: Golden Books and the Democratization of American Children's Book Publishing," attracted an audience of some 130 attendees at the Spurlock Museum 's auditorium. . During his approximately 48 hours in town, he traveled to the Urbana Free Library to give a talk to children interested in writing, to the Champaign Public Library for dinner with area school and public youth librarians, to a GSLIS class in book arts, to a brownbag lunch with GSLIS masters students, and a meeting of the Youth Literature Interest Group, a monthly discussion group of faculty and doctoral students drawn from three disciplines (English, Education, and LIS) and three campuses (UIUC, ISU, and EIU). And a good time was had by all!
Leonard Marcus in front of the Center for Children's Books
Golden Books display
We held our annual Open House on Thursday, October 2nd this year and had a line out the door! Visitors were able to see the new layout of the Center and hear about upcoming changes. All three units housed in room 24, The Center for Children’s Books, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, and the K12 Program Office, gave short presentations. Attendess also picked up plenty of free pre-publication copies of children’s and young adult books.
 And they're off! Visitors grabbed some great galley copies of YA and children's books! |
 Students also got a chance to mingle and talk about classes. |
