The Children's Literature Lecture Award (known as the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture from 1970 to 2020) is an annual event sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association. The organization counts selection as the lecturer among its "Book & Media Awards", for selection recognizes a career contribution to children's literature. 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.[1]
The lecture was funded in 1969 to honor the educator May Hill Arbuthnot and first held in 1970.[1] 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.'"[1] It was renamed the "Children's Literature Lecture Award" in January 2020.[2]
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.[1][3]
Due to "unforeseen circumstances," no lecture was given. Instead, a "virtual celebration of Dr. Bishop’s work and her impact on the field of children’s literature" was hosted by ALSC.[7]
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