The Children's Literature Lecture Award (known as the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture from 1970-2020) is an annual event sponsored by the
Association for Library Service to Children
The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is a division of the American Library Association, and it is the world's largest organization dedicated to library service to children. Its members are concerned with creating a better future ...
(ALSC), a division of the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
. The organization counts selection as the lecturer among its "Book & Media Awards", for selection recognizes a career contribution to
children's literature
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
. At the same time, the lecturer "shall prepare a paper considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children's literature", to be delivered as the Children's Literature Lecture and to be published in the ALSC journal ''
Children & Libraries''.
[
The lecture was established in 1969 to honor the educator May Hill Arbuthnot.][ Arbuthnot was one creator of " Dick and Jane" readers and she wrote the first three editions of ''Children and Books'' ( Scott, Foresman 1947, 1957, 1964). When informed of the new honorary lecture in her name, 'she recalled "that long stretch of years when I was dashing from one end of the country to the other, bringing children and books together by way of the spoken word."'][ It was renamed the "Children's Literature Lecture Award" in January 2020.About the Children's Literature Lecture Award]
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The lecturer may be an "author, critic, librarian, historian, or teacher of children's literature, of any country". The Children's Literature Lecture Award Committee selects one from a list of nominations, a process currently completed in January 15 to 18 months before the event. Then institutions apply to be the host: any "library school, department of education in college or university, or a children's library system". Several months later the same committee selects the host institution from the applicants.[
]
Lectures
Repeat lectures
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a public urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and a member of the University of Wiscon ...
has hosted two lectures.
Two lecture titles allude to ''The Secret Garden
''The Secret Garden'' is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in book form in 1911, after serialisation in '' The American Magazine'' (November 1910 – August 1911). Set in England, it is one of Burnett's most popular novels an ...
'', a 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' (published in 1885–1886), ''A Little P ...
.
See also
References
External links
2009 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture
—example event poster
{{ALA(library)
Annual events in the United States
Recurring events established in 1969
American children's literary awards
American Library Association awards
Lectures
1969 establishments in the United States
English-language literary awards