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IRLS 521:
Children's and Young Adult Literature in a Multicultural Society
Fall 2008
School of Information Resources and Library Science
University of Arizona
Fall 2008

Course Facilitator: Judi Moreillon, Ph.D.


Reading Records and Readers' Advisory:

The purpose of this project is to broaden and deepen your knowledge of children's and young adult literature, to respond personally to the books you read, and to create a record of your reading for future use.

Reading children's and young adult literature is the heart of this course. To promote the use of Web 2.0 tools, you will maintain your records on a wiki. You may organize that wiki in a way that makes sense to you and to others who may access your records, such as librarian colleagues, classroom teachers, and K-12 readers (and me, your instructor!).

These are the essential pieces of information you will record for each book:

1. bibliographic information: title, author, illustrator, publisher, date of publication, ISBN#, number of pages (age of readership), genre, diversity;
2. plot summary;
3. description of the illustrations;
4. one-sentence theme(s);
5. your personal response to the book;
6. curricular connections (how you might use it with students in a classroom) or programming connections (how you might use this book in a public library setting).

Use the Reading Record Template provided in D2L. See the sample reading records found on Dr. M's Reading Record wiki: http://drmsreadingrecords.pbwiki.com/

Bibliographies

In the Additional Learning Resources (ALR) on our D2L Web site, you will find bibliographies that I maintain that may help you in selecting titles for your reading records project.

These are some online resources that may help you locate multicultural books for your reading records.

Note: Not all of the titles on these lists will meet our criteria for "multicultural," but it is important that you know about these resources even if you cannot use all of the books for this course.

Acronyms: ALSC (Association of Library Services to Children), YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association)

Addams Award
The Jane Addams Award is given to books that promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races as well as meeting conventional standards for excellence.

Alex Awards
These awards are given by YALSA to books written for adults that are suitable for young adult audiences. You should know about this list, but for this course, you must read books that were written expressly for children and youth.

ALSC for Early Readers
ALSC has produced a "Starting to Read" and "Reading on My Own" bibliography of titles published between 2005 and 2008.

Amelia Bloomer Project
Since 2002, these books have been selected for their positive perspectives on women and their accomplishments. The list is divided by beginning readers, middle grades, and young adult - both fiction and non-fiction.

Américas Awards
These awards are given for U.S. children's and young adult books that "authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States."

Batchelder Award
This award is a citation awarded to an American publisher for a children's book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country, and subsequently translated into English and published in the United States. ALSC gives the award to encourage American publishers to seek out superior children's books abroad and to promote communication among the peoples of the world.

Belpré Award
This ALSC and Reforma (a National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking) sponsored award is given for books written or illustrated by Latino/Latina authors and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.

Best Books for Young Adults
YALSA offers an annual list of best books for YA readers.

Booklists of Children's Literature
Posted by the Monroe Public Library (Indiana), this site has lists indexed by type such as predictable books, books in a series, pirate books, funny fiction, math and space books... There is a "multicultural topics" section.

Caldecott Award
The Caldecott Metal is award yearly to the most distinguished children's picture book for its illustrations. Named after children's book illustrator, Randolph Caldecott, the Caldecott Medal was first awarded in 1938. Honor Books are also named by the Caldecott Committee, an ALSC committee.

Chicken Spaghetti
Blogger Susan Thomsen offers the "Best of the Best: Kids' Books '08" in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

Database of Award-Winning Children's Literature
Librarian Lisa Bartle maintains this site, which includes information about 79 awards and the books that have received each.

Geisel Award
The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is given to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year. This award was first presented by ALSC in 2006.

Get Caught Reading
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) published a list of books to promote literacy among Hispanic and Latino communities for El día de los niños/El día de los libros, an annual celebration sponsored by ALA and ALSC. Links to the lists are at the bottom of this page.

Grand Canyon Reader Award
These titles are nominated by Arizona students each spring. Classroom teachers and teacher-librarians share them with kids. Each April, students vote for their favorite titles in the picture book, non-fiction, intermediate and 'tween book categories for elementary and middle school readers. Young adult books are offered as a recommended list with voting optional. Link to the 2009 Nominated Books.

Great Graphic Novels for Teens
In 2007, YALSA began publishing an annual best graphic novel list.

Green Earth Book Award
These awards and honor books are given for children's fiction, young adult, and non-fiction books that focus on environmental stewardship.

Guys Read
This site is hosted by author Jon Scieszka. It includes a search that allows readers to enter their favorite book, favorite author, and subject of interest (but it wasn't working last time I tried it...).

International Digital Children's Literature Library
"The ICDL Foundation's goal is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world. Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community."

Nancy J. Keane
Nancy J. Keane is a middle school teacher-librarian and radio children's booktalk host in Concord, New Hampshire. You can read her booktalks indexed by title, author, subject, and interest level and peruse her bibliographies for titles.

King Award
The Coretta Scott King Awards are given annually by ALA's Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERET). The awards are given to African American authors and illustrators for titles that promote understanding and appreciation of the culture of all peoples and their contribution to the realization of the American dream.

Newbery Award
An ALSC committee votes for the Newbery Award books each year. Since 1922, a first place book receives the Newbery Medal and one or more books is awarded Honor Book status. The award is named after John Newbery, an English publisher and bookseller, who was the first person to print and sell books for children.

Noma Concours Awards
This prize is given to picture book illustrators from the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), Africa, the Arab States, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Odyssey Award
This award is for the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults available in English in the United States. This award was first presented by ALSC this year, in 2008.

Oprah: Great Books for Kids
Oprah teamed up with ALSC to create these lists, which are divided by age level. How many of them are "multicultural" by our definition?

Orbis Pictus Award
This award is given to non-fiction books for children by the National Council of Teachers of English.

Printz Award
This award started in 2000 and is given by YALSA to authors of outstanding young adult literature. You can access the 2008 award winners' speeches.

Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
YALSA provides an annual list of titles for reluctant YA readers.

Sibert Award
This ALSC award is given to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book for grades K-8 published in English during the preceding year.

Teens' Top Ten (2007)
YALSA conducts annual online voting for the top ten teen books of the year. In 2007, 6,000 teens participated.

USBBY Outstanding International Book List
The United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) publishes an annual list of foreign titles coming from publishers with U.S. distributors, as well as titles acquired by U.S. publishers.

Worlds of Words: International Collection of Children's and Adolescent Literature
This site offers online journals and many resources, including multiple strategies for locating and evaluating culturally authentic international children’s and adolescent literature and ideas for engaging students with these books in classrooms and libraries. The collection is housed at the University of Arizona in the College of Education.

Young Adult Librarian's Help/Homepage
Although small, this site is good resource for young adult literature, magazines, and comics. The genres/themes represented are adventure, horror, and feminism.


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Last updated: 5 January 2009


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