MEDIA RELEASES

Dominican University’s Butler Children’s Literature Center will present a Mock Caldecott Award discussion on Thursday, November 12 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on the main campus, 7900 W. Division Street, River Forest. The Caldecott Award is presented annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

Using the official Caldecott terms and criteria to evaluate a list of books contending for this year’s Caldecott Award, the program will give audience members the opportunity to vote on the most noteworthy books of the year. This facsimile Caldecott experience will be facilitated by Thom Barthelmess, curator of the Butler Children’s Literature Center and current president of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), the division of the American Library Association (ALA) that administers the Randolph Caldecott Medal.

All of the books to be discussed during the program are available for review in the Butler Center, which is open Thursday evenings from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and Sunday afternoons from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The books to be discussed and evaluated include: All the World, written by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Marla Frazee; A Book, written and illustrated by Mordecai Gerstein; Coretta Scott, written by Ntozake Shange and illustrated by Kadir Nelson; Duck! Rabbit!, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld; Higher! Higher!, written and illustrated by Leslie Patricelli; Jeremy Draws a Monster, written and illustrated by Peter McCarty; Our Abe Lincoln, written by Jim Aylesworth and illustrated by Barbara McClintock; and Tillie Lays an Egg, written by Terry Golson and illustrated by Ben Fink.   

The event is free and open to the public, but reservations must be made to butler@dom.edu. For more information visit www.dom.edu/butler, or contact Thom Barthelmess at 708-524-6861.

Established in 2009, the Butler Children’s Literature Center at Dominican University is one of the nation’s premier centers for the study of children’s and young adult literature. The center is a partnership of the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, the School of Education, the Rebecca Crown Library, and the Butler Family Foundation.