Awards & Scholarships

Art as a Mirror: Maureen Hayes Award Broadens Children’s Horizons

Children from dominant social groups… have suffered from the lack of availability about others… They need books that will help them understand the multicultural nature of the world they live in, and their place as a member of just one group, as well as their connections to all other humans. . . If they see only reflections of themselves, they will grow up with an exaggerated sense of their own importance and value in the world—a dangerous ethnocentrism. Rudine Sims Bishop, “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.”

Guest Blogger

2023 Children’s Literature Lecture

ALSC is proud to announce that the 2023 Children’s Literature Lecture will take place at University of Dayton, Ohio on Wednesday, April 12, 2023 in the Kennedy Union Ballroom. Author and illustrator Bryan Collier will give the 2023 Children’s Literature Lecture. The event will start at 6 P.M. with a reception and the lecture starting at 7 P.M. After the lecture, a book signing will be available.

Guest Blogger

Save the Date: Monday, June 26, 2023!

What’s happening in the afternoon on Monday, June 26? We’re so glad you asked! That’s the day Newbery Award-winning author Linda Sue Park; author, co-founder, and CEO of We Need Diverse Books Ellen Oh; and Dr. Ling Hwey Jeng, professor and director, School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University will be gathered in one place for a conversation about the many forms leadership takes in children’s services, kidlit, and beyond. This amazing discussion is one element of current ALSC President Amy Koester’s ALSC President’s Program “Leading with Your Hands and Your Heart: A Conversation about Leading from Wherever You Are” at ALA Annual 2023 in Chicago. We hope you will join us for this interactive program exploring ways to identify and activate leadership skills and areas of potential at all levels of library work.

Awards & Scholarships

An ALSC Budget Story: Receiving the Bechtel Fellowship, as Told by ALSC Member Joe Prince

Happy winter, everyone! Children’s library workers kick off each winter season with the excitement of the YMA Press Conference at LibLearnX, the rush of getting the awards seals on the newly announced winning books, and the recently appointed book award committees starting a new cycle of work. Yet, whereas the YMA Press Conference and ALSC book awards activities tend to get so much of our attention, ALSC buzzes yearlong with its work in support of numerous funded programs and activities to further and strengthen the work of children’s librarians, children’s librarianship, and the practice of the profession. One such program is the Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship. This fellowship provides a grant of up to $7,500 for a qualified children’s librarian to spend up to 4 weeks reading and studying at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, one of the Special and Area Studies Collections of the George A. Smathers…