Resources

An article (May 31st, 2007) in The Economist makes the point about the huge disparity in exposure to language between groups of people. The article is actually about the role of marriage in wealth maintenance and creation in different classes but has this aside about the impact of those differences on language exposure.

Research also suggests that middle- and working-class parents approach child-rearing in different ways. Professional parents shuttle their kids from choir practice to baseball camp and check that they are doing their homework. They also talk to them more. One study found that a college professor's kids hear an average of 2,150 words per hour in the first years of life. Working-class children hear 1,250 and those in welfare families only 620.

The E.B. White Read Aloud Award, established in 2004, honors a book that reflects the universal read aloud standards that were created by the work of the author E.B White in his classic books for children: Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan.

Established in 1938, the Caldecott Medal and honors are awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picturebook for children. The award is sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children within the broader American Library Association.

Go to the booklist of the Caldecott Medal winners that are in print to order any of these titles.

A Fuse#8 Productions - A librarian at the New York Public Library's The Donnell Central Children's Reading Room, fusenumber8 is a prolific blogger and reviewer plus a lot of fun to read. Her interests are wide ranging, (just about anything to do with children's books), her commentary direct, her wit tart. Enjoy.

Bottom Shelf Books - Authored by Minh Le, in Washington, D.C. this one is a lot of fun. His reviews and commentary are witty and racy. Not to everyone's genteel taste perhaps but I certainly appreciate his slightly off angle and off-color perspective. If I knew how to link to a particular place in a blog I would. In the meantime, try this alternative review of Mike Mulligan and his steamshovel as a sample of Le's style:

Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel Mary Anne are the toast of the town until the arrival of gasoline, electric, and diesel shovels render them obsolete. Unable to find work, Mike and Mary Anne move to a small town in search of employment.

Children, repeat after me: Karma's a bitch. As you may recall, the steam engine is what put folk hero John Henry out of commission. The legendary steel-drivin' man died after defeating the steam engine in a race. While Henry won the battle, his death meant that the steam engine won the war. Actually, the steam engine didn't win the war, because the industrial revolution is a heartlessly efficient devourer of souls and steam engines like Mary Anne eventually get replaced, joining John Henry in the dustbin of history.

Mary Anne's descent may be a case of poetic justice, but hers is a struggle that we can all relate to. Everyone strives to prove that they are special... but no matter how hot you are, something new will eventually come along to make you yesterday's news. Just ask Jennifer Lopez.

So kids, take note: Everyone eventually gets trampled by the steady march of time. You're young and cute now, but once that new baby comes along... well, you better start learning your multiplication tables or excel in a sport because you can't get by on your cuteness anymore. Welcome to the real world, punk. Now stop crying and get a job.

Project Gutenberg is the brainchild of Michael Hart. Starting in 1971 he, with an ever increasing crowd of volunteers, has been digitizing texts into simple .txt files and making them available at this site. They focus on out-of-copyright books and their range of books is staggering. Children's books are only a portion of what is available here. I use them for finding especially obscure exploration and travel texts but there is something for everyone.

Kids Web Japan - Not exactly my cup of tea but it does have a series of traditional Japanese folktales. I find the Japanese folktales fascinating, there are at the same time so many parallels with many European folktales and yet you often hit a perspective or angle of the story that is so different. This site allows you to select a tale which yields an animated slide show of the story with the text below each slide.

ALAN Review - Online home of the ALAN Review, published by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents, a special-interest group of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Lesson plan Sharon Jenkins and Jennifer Singer for Things Fall Apart by Chinue Achebe.

The Great Books Foundation is an independent, nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to help people learn how to think and share ideas.  Towards  this end, the Foundation publishes collections of classic and modern texts for children and adults,  and conducts training in the Shared InquiryTM method of discussion throughout the United States and abroad.

The mission of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy is: To establish literacy as a value in every family in America, by helping every family in the nation understand that the home is the child's first school, that the parent is the child's first teacher, and that reading is the child's first subject; and to break the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy, by supporting the development of family literacy programs where parents and children can learn and read together.

The Center for Children's Books have put together a collection of websites, Storytelling Websites, pertinent to the art and practice of storytelling.

Literacy Center.net - This site "provides safe learning activities for parents and teachers to share with young children. All online lessons are free of advertising and free of charge." The activities include recognizing upper and lower case letters, numbers, shapes and colors as well as some basic spelling. The activities are available in English, Dutch, French and Spanish.

The Children's Literature Association seeks:

To encourage serious scholarship and research in children's literature. To enhance the professional stature of the graduate and undergraduate teaching of children's literature. To encourage high standards of criticism in children's literature through

fellowships and scholarships to assist members in research

an annual award for the most significant critical article written about children's literature

an annual award for the most significant book of criticism, history or scholarship in the field of children's literature

the Phoenix Award, for the most outstanding book for children published twenty years earlier which did not receive a major award at the time of publication

an annual conference devoted to the discussion and exploration of children's literature

an annual award for the best undergraduate paper written about some aspect of children's literature

In 1987 the Audio Publishers Association (APA), a not-for-profit trade association, was created to:

Advocate high production value and advise on industry-specific technical standards; Serve as a networking, educational and information forum for its members; Deliver programs and services that serve the common business interests for its members; and Promote policies and activities that accelerate audiobook industry growth.

APA and its members work to bring all audio publishers together to create increased public awareness for the audiobook industry through joint publicity efforts, national consumer surveys, trade show exhibits, an association newsletter, and the annual APA conference – APAC.

The Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) is the not for profit peak body for Australian booksellers. We represent the shared aims of a diverse membership of chain, franchise, independent, campus and second hand bookshops. Our members proudly display the ABA logo on their shopfronts and websites.

As a service organisation, the ABA executive and staff embrace the principles of member focus, quality projects and relevance to member and community needs.

The Australian Centre for Youth Literature promotes reading. It offers exciting and affordable book events for young people and professionals. Teenagers and children meet great writers and talented young actors - bringing reading to life. Professional learning programs and the biennial Reading Matters conference keep adults in touch with crucial issues and ideas in youth literature.

The Australian Publishers Association (APA) is the peak industry body for Australian book, journal and electronic publishers. Established in 1948, the association is an advocate for all Australian publishers: large or small; commercial or non-profit; academic or popular; locally or overseas owned.

Over the years the APA has grown into an organisation of considerable influence. From modest beginnings and a membership of twenty, the Association now has over 160 members and represents 91% of the industry, based on turnover.

The Australian School Library Association Inc. (ASLA) is a national authority, a peak forum in the field of teacher librarianship and school library resource services.

Its aim is to maximise opportunities for students to obtain independent lifelong learning and decision making skills through ASLA's commitment to :

High professional standards Awareness of advances and changes in technology and the competence and ability to teach and use it Effective, cooperative use of school resource services by the whole school community Qualified teacher librarians with an image of excellence Optimum use of the dual skills of teaching and librarianship

The Australian Society of Authors is the professional association for Australia's literary creators.

The ASA was formed in 1963 to promote and protect the rights of Australia's writers and illustrators, and now has almost 3000 members across Australia.

The Blogna Children's Book Fair is the world's leading event for children's publishing copyright professionals.

For 45 years, Bologna hosts in the spring the premier meeting among the world’s producers of children’s content: book publishers, literary agents, TV/film companies, and licensing developers. A forum thoroughly addressing every aspect of this field.

Booktrust is an independent national charity that encourages people of all ages and cultures to discover and enjoy reading.

This web site provides free resources and recommendations for teachers, librarians and parents about books for young people of all ages.

Welcome to the Canadian Children’s Book Centre's home on the web!
A national not-for-profit organization and registered charity, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) was founded in 1976 to promote, support and encourage the reading, writing and illustrating of Canadian books for children and teens.

With book collections and extensive resources in five cities across Canada, the CCBC is a treasure-trove for anyone interested in Canadian books for young readers. Through our publications and programs (such as the quarterly magazine, Canadian Children’s Book News and the annual TD Canadian Children’s Book Week), the CCBC actively promotes Canadian books and brings their readers and creators together.

The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) is a unique and vital gathering place for books, ideas, and expertise in the field of children's and young adult literature. The CCBC is a noncirculating examination, study, and research library for Wisconsin school and public librarians, teachers, early childhood care providers, university students, and others interested in children's and young adult literature. The CCBC is part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) School of Education (SoE), and receives additional support from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI).

Good literature promotes literacy. The Center for Children’s Books is a crossroads for critical inquiry, professional training, and educational outreach related to literature for youth from birth through adolescence. In partnership with The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books—an authoritative analytic review journal—the Center aims to inspire and inform adults who connect young people with resources in person, in print, and online. An integral part of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, the Center sponsors activities and hosts interdisciplinary research projects involving both theory and practice. In its dual role as research collection and educational community, the Center has national impact on the future of reading and readers.

The Children's Book Council, Inc. is the nonprofit trade association of publishers and packagers of trade books and related materials for children and young adults

The goals of the Children's Book Council are:

• to make the reading and enjoyment of children's books an essential part of America's educational and social goals;

• to enhance public perception of the importance of reading by disseminating information about books and related materials for young people and information about children's book publishing; and

• to create materials to support literacy and reading encouragement programs and to encourage the annual observance of National Children's Book Week and Young People's Poetry Week.

The Children's Book Council of Australia aims to foster children's enjoyment of books through:

Managing the Children's Book of the Year Awards.

Providing information on and encouragement to authors and illustrators.

Organising exhibitions and activities during Children's Book Week.

Supporting children's library services.

Promoting high standards in book reviewing.

Founded in 1945, the Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C. is a professional organization that serves the community by promoting high standards in children's literature and encouraging the love of good books.

Children's Literature for Children is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, educational organization dedicated to bringing children and books together. CLC began in 1972 at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia, as the first structured academic course in children's literature. Now CLC's programs are in hospitals and schools throughout the United States and in countries all over the world.

Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania Children's Department came into existence in 1963. In 1994 was reorganized into the Children's Literature Centre (CLC).

CLC accumulates, processes, and stores children's literature, both original and in translation, as well as works on history, theory and literary criticism, informative and reference publications from various countries related to children's literature. The aim of CLC is to acquire, as full as possible, earlier Lithuanian and translated children's books and books published by Lithuanian exiles. CLC collection numbers approximately 102.000 volumes.

The Children's Literature Connection is an organization dedicated to the advancement of children's literature. Our goals include encouraging networking and collaboration among writers, illustrators, teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, editors, parents, and others, and strengthening the connection between the people who create children's books and the people who use them.

Recent changes in education policy are discouraging teachers from using authentic children's literature in school. Part of our mission is to provide a counterpoint to those arguments. Our children won't be literate if they don't read literature.

Eastern Michigan University has been and continues to be a pioneer in Children’s Literature Studies. The EMU library houses one of the largest collections of children's literature in the nation. In a speech dedicating the "Helbig Collection of Literature for Children and Young People" to the Friends of EMU’s Halle Library, Alethea Helbig said those who founded Children’s Literature Studies at EMU in the late 1960s—Marjorie Miller, Helen Hill, Agnes Perkins, G.B. Cross, and herself—were instrumental in defining Children’s Literature as a field of study: “Trained in literature studies, we looked at children's books somewhat differently from what had long been the case. We saw them as works of imaginative literature worthy of critical examination in their own right, rather than as handmaidens for teaching reading or other subject matter, although those are legitimate uses. And we began to discover that others elsewhere in academe were doing the same.”

Welcome to the online home of the Educational Paperback Association, an association of wholesalers and publishers who supply paperback books, prebound books and other materials to schools and libraries.

The Fremantle Children's Literature Centre aims to make literature more accessible in a rich, happy, stimulating environment and provide a focus for all those interested in children's literature, bringing together students, teachers, parents, authors, illustrators and specialists in the field.

Exhibitions of original manuscripts, preliminary drawings and original artwork show the collaborative process involved in creating children's and young adult picture books. Interactive workshops are run for students from pre primary to tertiary level and professional development seminars for teachers, librarians, writers and illustrators. There is a comprehensive authors and illustrators in residence programme for approximately 16 weeks annually.

The Centre has an ever-increasing rural, interstate and international residence programme wherein Centre staff and, whenever possible, authors and illustrators, undertake literature programmes in places as diverse as Bangkok, Christmas Island, Somerset, Qld, Adelaide, Kalgoorlie, Broome, Dalwallinu and remote Aboriginal communities.

Hollins offers summer M.A. and M.F.A. programs exclusively in the study and writing of children's literature. One of the few in the country to offer humanities graduate degrees in children's literature, we are, we believe, the only one to offer them in the study and writing of children's literature.

The study of children’s literature as a scholarly experience was initiated at Hollins in 1973 by the major American poet and children’s poet William Jay Smith. Possibly the most widely known and read alumna of the college is Margaret Wise Brown, a 1932 graduate, among whose many books for children are the classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny. Among the many other Hollins students who have written for children
are Katharine Boling, Joan Carris, John Hay, Betty Hicks, Hillary Homzie, Robin D. Jones, A. LaFaye, Katie Letcher Lyle, Marilyn MacGregor, William Miller, Patricia Mills, Lee Robinson, Karen Adams Sulkin, Eve Tal, Michelle Taylor, Sylvia Wilkinson, and Willie Wilson.

Independent Online Booksellers Association was founded in 1999 by a group of concerned online booksellers. When the internet began to take on a life of its own around this time, and several pioneer used/out-of-print/antiquarian book search services opened their electronic doors for business, the booksellers who were really their partners in this new venture were thrilled with the results, as were our customers. Even at this early date, however, it became obvious that we needed to reconcile the wonderful efficiency and relative anonymity of online selling with the importance of maintaining traditional values. Forming a trade association gave us an opportunity to address the key issues of establishing trust between bookseller and book buyer, helping to train future generations of new booksellers, advocating for our members, and acting as a clearinghouse for information.

The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) is a non-profit organization which represents an international network of people from all over the world who are committed to bringing books and children together.

IFLA (The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession.

Founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1927 at an international conference, we celebrated our 75th birthday at our conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2002. We now have 1700 Members in 150 countries around the world. IFLA was registered in the Netherlands in 1971. The Royal Library, the national library of the Netherlands, in The Hague, generously provides the facilities for our headquarters.

The mission of the International Children’s Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world's children to become members of the global community – children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online.

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), formerly the Open eBook Forum (OeBF), is the trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry. Our members consist of academic, trade and professional publishers, hardware and software companies, digital content retailers, libraries, educational institutions, accessibility advocates and related organizations whose common goals are to advance the competitiveness and exposure of digital publishing.

The International Publishers Association (IPA) is the global non-governmental organisation representing all aspects of book and journal publishing worldwide. Established in 1896, IPA's mission is to promote and protect publishing and to raise awareness for publishing as a force for cultural and political advancement worldwide. IPA is an industry association with a human rights mandate.

International Readding Association was founded in 1956 as a professional organization for those involved in teaching reading to learners of all ages. Our members are dedicated to promoting high levels of literacy for all by

Improving the quality of reading instruction

Disseminating research and information about reading

Encouraging the lifetime reading habit