A PREconference celebrating the ALSC honor books was held on Saturday June 24th and featured honor winning authors for the Geisel, Sibert, Caldecott and Newbery awards in conversation with each other about their different books. Here is the link to the PREconference page where you can see which authors spoke at the program.
The authors were grouped into panels that focused on three different ideas and questions. I’ll leave them here for you to think about.
Perceive
How do experiences affect the way we see the world and how does that come out in the books of the honor winners?
One comment that stuck out to me was that if you treat the unknown as scary, it will be. However, wonder is the bridge between knowing and not knowing and I think that comes out in a lot of children’s books. Kids have knowledge but they still love the mystery and wonder of unknown parts of the world.
Rise
How do people “rise” to meet the challenges of life and its injustices?
The point I’m going to pull out of this session is that R. Gregory Christie said that the books the panelists are creating are going to affect the next generation by taking people outside of their own points of view. If you make the mistake of pretending it didn’t happen, you are taking that knowledge away fromt he next generation. It’s important to face those tough events and topics.
Engage
How do books spark engagement with the text and with each other?
I’m sure we can all relate with Carson Ellis who said that reading with children is not a static experience. Each time you read a book with the child the experience changes but they also want to deeply engage with the text.
Overall, this was a great day of conversation and thoughts about wonderful literature for children.
What do you think of these questions? How would you answer?