Interview with PhD Student April Spisak: Celebrity Picture Books
"What I realized was that, while picture books written by celebrities aren't unique in this one element, they are unusual in that they are not really written for the same audience as most picture books. They are written for the gatekeepers."
Madonna concert. |
Read the complete interview or skip to a question . . .
How did you become interested in your topic?
Tell me about your research.
Do you have a sense, having been a librarian yourself, of how this research might inform the work of practicing librarians?
Could you tell me a little bit about one of these books? Something about the story and how it might illustrate what you've been talking about?
For celebrities of color, it seems like their ability to be role-models may be especially relevant. Does that make the books more effective or less shallow?
Are there other things that I haven't asked that you ask yourself?
Do you have anything that you would say to students who are considering research in youth services or library science more broadly?
Further Reading: A Selection of Celebrity Books
Affiliate Research Profiles and Presentations
Deborah Stevenson to Present at ILA Annual Conference
Extravaganza of Books: New Children’s & YA Books of 2011
Tuesday, October 18 3:00 – 4:30 P.M. Room 48, 52–53
Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Illinois
Click here to download a PDF of the annotated handout supplied at the presentation. Copying and redistribution encouraged, please include credit.
Deborah Stevenson, Director of the Center for Children's Books and Editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books presented the "Extravaganza of Books: New Children’s & YA Books of 2011" at the 2011 Illinois Library Association in Rosemont, Illinois. Her presentation offered a look into the best and most noteworthy new children’s and young adult books of 2011. This annual program gives librarians who serve children, ages birth to grade 12, an opportunity to see what titles will fit best in their collections. For more information about the ILA annual conference, click here.
CCB Affiliates Present at SHARP Conference
The annual Confernce of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing was held this year in Washington, D.C from Thursday, July 14th to Sunday, July 17th. Professor Carol Tilley presented on a panel with other scholars about Cartoons and Comics and Professor Kate McDowell chaired a pannel with GSLIS Adjunct Professor Debra Mitts-Smith and doctoral student Loretta Gaffney.
Friday, July 15th, 8:30-10am
Cartoons and Comics
Chair: Larry Sullivan, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York
- Corinna Norrick, Gutenberg-Institute for Book Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz,
Germany, Media competition as the Subject of Cartoon Art in the German Trade
Magazine “Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel,” 1975 to 2010 - Padmini Ray Murray, Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication, University
of Stirling, Webcomics vs. the World: Scott Pilgrim and the Future of Comics Publishing - Carol Tilley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Where Science Meets Culture: Frederic
Wertham's "Seduction of the Innocent" and the Pathologization of Comic Book Readers
Sunday, July 17th, 1:45-3:15
Struggle for Survival: Art, Science, and Politics in Children's Books about Evolution, Endangered Predators, and Sex
Chair: Kate McDowell, University of Illinois
- Kate McDowell, University of Illinois, The Art of Evolution: Images of Geological Time in Science Books for Children, 1865-1956
- Debra Mitts-Smith, University of Illinois and Dominican University, The Art and Science of Three North American Apex Predators: Image and Text and the Construction of Scientific Information about Grizzlies, Wolves, and Mountain Lions in Nonfiction for Children
- Loretta Gaffney, University of Illinois, 'Excess Access': Challenges to Sex and Sexuality in Children's and
YA Books
To view the complete SHARP 2011 Conference Schdule, visit the conference website.
Interview with GSLIS Assistant Professor Carol Tilley
"We would be excited today if 95% of kids were reading anything."
I grew up reading comics. My house was on the same block as the public library and I went there pretty much every day from the time I could walk. I didn’t go on Saturdays because I walked downtown to a little drugstore where I sat on the floor and read the new comics that came in. I bought one sometimes but mostly I went and sat on the floor and read. It never occurred to me that it was weird that I had to go somewhere other than the library to read comic books. . . read more.
Interview with PhD Student Minjie Chen
"In the U.S. we have a rich body of youth literature set during World War II, but it's hard to find books portraying Chinese people's experiences."
The major question I pursued in my dissertation is what information about ethnic Chinese people's experiences during the Second World War has been provided to young people in China and the U.S? These two countries were military allies fighting against Imperial Japan, which invaded China from 1937 to 1945. In China this topic has been captured in popular culture of all media formats, including children’s reading materials. . . read more.
The goal of this multiple-phased research project conducted by Carol Tilley and Kathryn La Barre is the development of a next-generation catalog prototype implementation with enhanced records for access to the folktale collection in the Center for Children's Books that gives special consideration to the shared and unique information seeking tasks of three distinct user groups: scholars, practitioners and laypeople. Bibliographic records for folktale resources frequently omit indicators of the rich, cultural heritage these items represent and provide only minimal access to their intellectual contents. Record enhancements may incorporate existing folktale classifications such as the Aarne-Thompson tale-type index and controlled vocabularies as well as current developments in cataloguing practices and standards such as FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records).
The Youth, Literature, & Culture group (YLC) is an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty and doctoral students from the University of Illinois, Illinois State University, and Eastern Illinois University.
In formal existence since 2004, this group brings together faculty and doctoral students who share a scholarly interest in children’s and young adult literature and media. We represent various disciplines, including Education, English, History, Library and Information Science, and meet monthly to discuss research on young people, texts, and cultural contexts. We also participate in the annual GSLIS Research Showcase, and host the Gryphon Lecture, an annual lecture featuring a leading scholar of youth and literature, media, or culture.
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The February 2009 meeting of YLIG celebrated Black History Month with a presentation on and discussion of early 20th century African-American children's and young adult literature.
Dr. Fern Kory, professor of English at Eastern Illinois University , led off with a presentation of her research: “The ‘All-White World of Children's Books’ in the Post-war Era: Call Me Charley and the Integration of American Children's Literature.”
When, why, and how did this "all-white world" of books for young readers start to change? Call Me Charley (1945) was one of the pioneering titles published in the years immediately following World War II. This novel was written by author Jesse Jackson at the invitation of Harper Brothers editor Ursula Nordstrom, who was looking for an African American writer to tell "the story of a black boy."
Dr. Kory’s talk included information about the circumstances under which this book--and its author--found a place in American children's literature and a consideration of what Jackson's story adds to our understanding of the history of African American youth literature. Kory's presentation was followed by a rich and wide-ranging discussion of the history of this body of literature.
YLIG events are free and open to all who have a scholarly interest in books and other texts for young readers. If you would like to be informed of future meetings, send an email to ccb@illinois.edu
You can access Professor Kory's talk here:
http://waterfall.lis.uiuc.edu/dl/events/ylig/koryfeb13_09.ram
The Gryphon Lecture series is hosted every spring semester by the Youth, Literature, & Culture group (YLC) and features a leading scholar in the field of youth literature. It is an event developed to hold relevance across disciplines at the University. These lectures are free and open to students and the public. A reception to discuss issues raised, network across departments, and meet with the speaker follows each lecture. Click here for a list of previous speakers and audio.
The Youth Literature Interest Group (YLIG) hosted the first Allerton conference on October 20 - 22, 2006. The Allerton conference, titled Family, Youth, and Literature, highlighted the interdisciplinary focus of YLIG, and included panel speakers from English literature, Library and Information Science, Education, and American Indian Studies. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the theme, both practical suggestions and theoretical explanations were provided.
