We know that children’s librarians develop and deliver services that encourage and support children’s overall development. How do we learn how to do this well? New research about child development knowledge in our field I just read an article called “Child development knowledge among new children’s librarians in US public libraries” that was published in the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science written by Jennifer Rice Sullivan. Sullivan reports on a survey of 61 children’s librarians with MLIS degrees completed within the past five years. Participants responded to a series of questions about perceived knowledge across these six domains of child development: Language Cognition Gross motor Fine motor Emotional Social Most respondents reported having moderate to high levels of knowledge about these domains. Next, Sullivan asked more specific questions about participants’ knowledge of these topics. Behavior management Early literacy skills Object permanence Attachment Separation anxiety Self-regulation Executive functions…
Author: Tess Prendergast
Tess Prendergast was a children’s librarian for 23 years. She has a PhD in early literacy education and now teaches librarianship and children’s literature courses at The School of Information, University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has served on many ALSC committees and is currently serving on the 2023 Geisel Award committee.
Diversifying Our Storytime Book Selections
Do you have a shelf of go-to books for your storytimes? These books probably have big, bright illustrations, engaging text that invites participation, and are just a blast to read aloud. But are many of your storytime books about caterpillars, puppies, and trucks? If storytime is for all kids, should they also see kids like themselves in the books we share with them?
A wild ride through social issues found in past Caldecott books
A group of pre conference attendees engaged in a fruitful discussion about how examinations of Caldecott books are able to illuminate various aspects of the eras in which they were published and awarded. Led by Christine Jenkins (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne) the group examined books dating from 1938 to 1970. While not specifically looking for problems or areas that might be objectionable to contemporary readers, the participants frequently commented on their observations about stereotypical gender role portrayals in many of the winning titles from the 20th century. Together with my work partner Nancy, I examined the books from 1962. While we both like Marcia Brown’s winning title called Once a Mouse, we agreed that it may be vulnerable to challenges due to the magical/occult elements (a mouse is changed repeatedly into different animals). Fox went out on a chilly night…