Object: Photo from the Sixth Biennial Conference of Children’s Literature in English, Education, and Library Science, 21 April 2018, at the K-State Student Union.
Observations: 1) Jacqueline Woodson had just recently received the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award when she was already scheduled to visit to Kansas State. The award followed on previous honors, including the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and her appointment as the 2015-2017 Young People’s Poet Laureate. We were grateful that she could still participate in the conference, even if it meant spending less than 24 hours in Manhattan, KS, in between other events. 2) Woodson served as the keynote speaker for our Sixth Biennial Conference of Children’s Literature in English, Education, and Library Science. The conference, co-sponsored with one of our student organizations, the Children’s and Adolescent Literature Community (ChALC), features an author or illustrator of children’s or YA literature alongside presentations by faculty, students, and librarians. 3) Woodson’s talk, “Behind the Books,” offered wonderful insight into the connections between art and life for a crowd of 200+ students, faculty, staff, and community members. 4) The photo above, captured during the book-signing after her talk, shows English faculty member Tosha Sampson-Choma and her daughter as they get their books signed by Woodson. 5) The 2022 ChALC Conference will be held online this Saturday, March 26, 9:00am-12:00pm CT, and the theme is “(Re)Writing History: Representation Matters in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.” Join us for a great series of presentations, including a keynote by the award-winning author Malinda Lo, who will speak on “Inside the Telegraph Club: On the Real History Behind Last Night at the Telegraph Club.” Register for free at https://tinyurl.com/kstatechalc2022 by Friday March 25 at 5pm CT for access to the conference. See you there!
— Karin Westman, Department Head and Faculty Advisor for ChALC
K-State English 