 IBBY was founded in the wake of World War II with the devastation in Europe and much of the world deeply affecting thousands of children and families. And yet, Jella Lepman believed this was the right moment to bring people together to work toward peace, understanding and tolerance through sharing literature with children. This was her motivation as she founded IBBY and her vision continues to be our inspiration. IBBY works tirelessly to advocate for books and reading as a fundamental way to move toward a peaceful and tolerant world. Unfortunately, there continue to be wars and conflicts around the globe. In particular, we are appalled at the constant and ferocious Russian attacks against the sovereign state of Ukraine, especially the killing of thousands of innocent civilians and the trauma it is causing children and their families. We strongly and firmly condemn the unjustified war in Ukraine and greatly admire the efforts of IBBY Ukraine and the Ukrainian book community as they work to help children survive and cope. We are actively supporting the relief efforts in Poland to provide books for Ukrainian refugees who have had to flee their war-torn country. We continually look for further ways to be of help to those in crisis. With 80 national sections of IBBY around the world, our IBBY family is distressed when any of our sections finds itself in a country under attack. IBBY Ukraine has been a beacon of hope for children and their books for 25 years and we reiterate our respect and admiration for them as they continue their work despite facing the most difficult circumstances. As the IBBY family, we stand together in our commitment to international understanding and to a brighter, more peaceful future. IBBY Executive Committee 28 October 2022 www.ibby.org This year's Annual USBBY meeting will be held on Saturday, November 5th at Noon Eastern Time on Zoom.
We are looking forward to sharing updates on the upcoming USBBY New York Event scheduled for March 25, 2023, a special presentation about the inspirational work of our Twinning partner, IBBY Lebanon, greetings from the newly elected IBBY President, Sylvia Vardell, and other USBBY business. The program is free, but registration is required. If you have not already done so, please register at: https://forms.gle/Zt4KEEdqkXqUBqvM9 You will receive a Zoom link for the Annual Meeting the day before the event.  The 2022 co-sponsored ALA/USBBY program will be held at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference on Sunday, June 26, 2022, in Washington D.C., from 1-2 pm. The program is titled “Celebrate Indigenous Storytelling: Books from across the Northern Border” and will be held in the Washington Convention Center, Room 149A-B. Save the program now in the online Conference Scheduler! Program Description: Join the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) as we celebrate indigenous storytelling! Hear from Inuit author Monica Ittusardjuat, as well as the co-founding authors of Inhabit Media, an Inuit-owned, independent Canadian publishing company. USBBY, an affiliate of ALA, serves as the U.S. National Section of the International Board on Books for Young People, which was founded to promote international understanding and good will through books for children and adolescents. authors:
As members of the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) prepare for the upcoming IBBY Regional Conference, taking place on March 4-6, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee, we have kept a close eye on the actions by Tennessee’s McMinn County Board of Education, who voted unanimously to remove Art Spiegelman’s Maus from its eighth-grade language arts curriculum.
One of the key aims of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) and its US National Section, the USBBY, is “to give children everywhere the opportunity to have access to books with high literary and artistic standards”, and the critically acclaimed Maus—which broke artistic and intellectual ground with its non-fiction account of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and mental health struggles—is exactly the kind of work that should be accessible to students and educators. As such, we condemn the actions of McMinn County Board of Education for the decision, and invite them to join us at our Regional Conference in March. All attendees of the conference will be given a free copy of Jella Lepman’s autobiography, A Bridge of Children’s Books. Lepman, a Jewish journalist, author, and translator who returned to Germany mere months after the end of the Second World War to found the International Youth Library, which led to the establishing of IBBY, was a woman with a deep understanding of how to speak to children about the same difficult issues that seem to intimidate the McMinn County Board of Education. We would be happy to share the methods that she—and USBBY—have found so successful for the last 70 years. None of them, of course, involve the censoring or banning of literature. Hans Christian Andersen Award Presented to Jacqueline Woodson; Yuyi Morales delivers Briley Lecture2/12/2022
In-person conferences are back and there’s no better way to ease into the new reality than with the 14th IBBY Regional conference coming up in Nashville. The Briley Lecture will be delivered by Yuyi Morales on Saturday evening, Jacqueline Woodson will (finally) receive her Hans Christian Andersen Author medal, capping off each day of general sessions and more than a dozen breakout sessions on the music of words and the power of books for children. The IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Regional Conference typically has around 200 attendees and is characterized by the opportunities for interaction with authors and colleagues interested in the world of children’s books. Vanderbilt University is this year’s host and requires proof of vaccination and masks while the timing of the gathering coincides with the university’s Spring break, making social distancing simpler. Audiobook fans will revel in the “Music of Words: Taking Own Voices to the Next Level” featuring Traci Sorell, who wrote and produced the audiobook of her award-winning We Are Still Here, plus Audie and Earphones winner Dion Graham, and Michele Cobb, the Executive Director of the Audio Publishers Association, who is a regular speaker on the topic at book fairs around the world. The Children’s Book Council is sponsoring “International Publishing: The Many Paths to North America.” This inspiring panel will feature CBC members Angus Killick of Red Comet Press, Christopher Lloyd of What on Earth Books/Britannica Books plus Emma Raddatz of Elsewhere Editions and John Mackey of Italbooks. Additional General Sessions include a program with USBBY author nominees Linda Sue Park and Jacqueline Woodson for the Hans Christian Andersen award, a conversation between HCA Illustrator winner Roger Mello and Junko Yokota, educational sessions about the work of Jane Kurtz’ (USBBY’s nominee for the IBBY IRead Reading Promoter Award) “Ready Set Read” initiative for Ethiopian children, and the nonprofit I’m Your Neighbor Books. An All-Conference Read with the new graphic novel of Ruta Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray will include a conversation with Ruta, educator Scot Smith (who chaired the recent YALSA Symposium) and Ingram’s Nicole Robinson Hamilton. Breakout sessions will provide opportunities for deep dives into topics such as the USBBY’s Outstanding International Books List, Anne Sibley O’Brien’s work on Diverse Bookfinder, an educational session on Dolly Parton and the Imagination Library, “Freedom Songs in International Children’s Literature,” and many more. The conference concludes with Christopher Lloyd providing a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of It’s Up to Us: Building a Brighter Future for Nature, People & Planet (What on Earth Books) that features the art of 33 illustrators from around the world including Raul Colon, Peter Sis, Poonam Mistry, Le Yuying, Sydney Smith, and Leah Marie Dorion. Pre- and post-conference activities include guided tours of the new National Museum of African American Music, the Parthenon (featuring one of the tallest indoor statues in the world), and the Nashville Public Library, whose tour will wrap up with a performance of “Ellingtown” by the world famous Thomas Tichenor marionettes. A silent auction will feature art, signed books, and more with the proceeds benefiting the many ongoing projects of USBBY and IBBY, including the funding of our twinning partners—chapters that are supported by USBBY—in Lebanon, Haiti, and Palestine. A follow-up “Closing Act” virtual conference (an included event for registered attendees of the Nashville conference) will be held on May 14 with sessions from the IBBY chapters in Canada and Mexico. The conference schedule is available at https://www.usbby.org/regional-conference.html and the deadline for registration is February 18. Please contact the conference program chair, Ellen Myrick, at ellen@publisherspotlight.com with questions, comments and feedback and follow usbby at @usbby_books on Instagram, @usbby on Twitter, and on Facebook at @usbby. Join us for the USBBY Annual Membership meeting on Saturday, November 6 at Noon Eastern Time. Hear updates on the IBBY Regional Conference, March 4-6, 2022 in Nashville. Learn about publishing international translated children’s books with a special program by publisher Claudia Zoe Bedrick and Editor Emilie Robert Wong of Enchanted Lion. The program is free, but registration is required. Click here to receive the Zoom link.
USBBY nominates Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for the 2022 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award8/27/2021
The United States Board on Books for Young People has nominated Jane Kurtz for the IBBY-iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award. The IBBY-iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award, established by the Shenzhen iRead Foundation and IBBY, “encourages a real commitment to the cause of reading promotion in the hope of spreading this dedication to others around the globe.” It honors “outstanding individuals who are working to promote the expansion and development of children’s reading.“ Jane Kurtz works to improve the literacy of children, the culture around literacy, and the infrastructure supporting literacy development in Ethiopia and around the globe. Jane grew up in rural Ethiopia and is uniquely positioned to understand the need for grassroots efforts anchored in Ethiopia with multi-pronged approaches to promoting literacy. With a network of relationships to enable the success of these efforts, she has created over 100 bilingual books and developed connections at organizational and governmental levels in Ethiopia, including establishing libraries, speaking at conferences, and recruiting local authors. Jane’s work with literacy addresses the challenges of multiple official languages; lack of books reflecting Ethiopian culture, history, and landscape; obstacles in the translation, publication, and distribution process; and insufficient professional opportunities for educators and librarians. Jane partners with Ethiopia Reads and Open Hearts Big Dreams, using Ready Set Go Books to create an innovative pathway for book creation, translation, distribution, and use that addresses these issues. In addition to her work in literacy, she is a successful author of global picturebooks, speaker at global conferences, and mentor for emerging authors. Her vision has opened the lens for reading promotion as an inspiration for other projects around the world. Committee members who compiled the nomination material that was submitted to IBBY are Committee Chair Kathy G. Short, Susan Corapi, and Meredith Davis. For additional information, contact the United States Board on Books for Young People at: usbby@nl.edu. unaccompanied minors update; may 2021original post; april, 2021Dear Members and friends of USBBY,
The REFORMA Children in Crisis project has been addressing the needs of asylum seeking children arriving at the southern U.S. border since 2014 when long-time USBBY member Oralia Garza de Cortes and Lucia Gonzalez founded the group. Several years ago, the USBBY Executive Director had the experience of traveling to the Brownsville area with several others from REFORMA and IBBY to witness the plight of these children and to deliver books in Spanish so they would have something to bring them some comfort and joy. Our visit was both enlightening and heartbreaking! Over these years there has been an ebb and flow of activity as the arrival of children has fluctuated and as the U.S. national policy has changed. Today, the situation is dire as more refugee children arrive at our border every day to seek asylum and a better life from natural disasters and life-threatening conditions in their home countries. They need your help! Please make a donation today! REFORMA now faces an extreme challenge as it attempts to send books to both sides of the border for the rapidly rising number of arriving children and families. USBBY/IBBY, along with REFORMA, is seeking donations to the IBBY/REFORMA Project so that Spanish and bilingual Spanish/English books can be purchased for the children. These books will be shipped to the various shelters, and transportation points where the children are passing through and anywhere else where children are arriving. Donations may be in the form of money or books! To donate funds, please visit the USBBY donation page and select IBBY/REFORMA Project from the Select Donation Fund menu. To donate books directly, or if you are a distributor/publisher/bookstore, please email cic@reforma.org to coordinate this option. Each day the situation at the border for the Central American children worsens. The goal of Children in Crisis is to make this situation a little more bearable by providing books to as many children as possible. Thanks for your past support. We hope you will help give our current asylum-seeking youth the gift of books in their home language that can provide solace and comfort in this time of crisis and fear. Sincerely, V. Ellis Vance, USBBY Executive Director Evelyn B. Freeman, USBBY President |
