Children's Books in Children's Hands

The authors of this text were drawn together by a love of children's books and a fascination with the people who make them and by the hope that another generation of students, teachers, librarians, and parents could be inspired to take up the challenge of getting those works into the hands of children.



Charles Temple is a banjo-picking storyteller and Education Department Chair at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Upstate New York He has co-authored many books in the field of reading and language arts, including All Children Read, Understanding Reading Problems, and The Beginnings of Writing. He has also published several books for children. Temple has worked over the years with teachers in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America who are using literacy and literature to better students' lives. He currently advises writers, illustrators, and editors in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania to produce contemporary books for children; and also works with teachers in the Caucasus region to develop assessment and teaching tools for children from internal refugee families. Favorite books as a child included: The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol; Uncle Wiggly Stories and Dr. Doolittle; and also Tom Swift, and the All-About Books.



Miriam Martinez is a teacher educator at the University of Texas at San Antonio who loves nothing more than getting lost in good books, including children's books, of course! She is recipient of the International Reading Association's Arbuthnot Award which honors outstanding university teachers of children's literature. Dr. Martinez coedited Book Talk and Beyond: Children and Teachers Respond to Literature (1995) and What a Character! Character Study as a Gateway to Literary Understanding (2005), both published by the International Reading Association. She served for seven years as the coeditor of "Bookalogues," a children's book review column in the journal Language Arts. She is publicity chair for the Children's Literature Assembly. The focus of her research and writing is on ways of bringing children and books together to foster students' literary and literacy development. Favorite books as a child included: Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss; The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright; Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright; Dangerous Island by Helen Mather-Smith Mindlin; and The Bobbsey Twins in Mexico by Laura Lee Hope.



Junko Yokota is the director of the Center for Teaching through Children's Books and a professor emerita of National Louis University in Chicago, Illinois. She was a classroom teacher and a school librarian during the first ten years of her career. Her publications include articles and review columns in a wide variety of reading/language arts and children's literature journals, chapters in professional books, and Kaleidoscope: A Multicultural Booklist for Grades K-8 published by the National Council of Teachers of English. She has served on the Caldecott and Newbery Award Committees, chaired the Batchelder Award Committee, and a judge on the Audies Awards. Junko is past president of the United States Board on Books for Young People (the US national section of IBBY) and a recipient of the Virginia Hamilton Award for Contribution to Multicultural Literature. She has served two terms on the Hans Christian Andersen Jury to select the author and illustrator winners of the highest international award for children's literature. Having grown up in Japan, her favorite childhood books were in her first language.

The authors of this text were drawn together by a love of children's books and a fascination with the people who make them and by the hope that another generation of students, teachers, librarians, and parents could be inspired to take up the challenge of getting those works into the hands of children.

<b>Charles Temple</b> is a banjo-picking storyteller and Education Department Chair at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Upstate New York He has co-authored many books in the field of reading and language arts, including All Children Read, Understanding Reading Problems, and The Beginnings of Writing. He has also published several books for children. Temple has worked over the years with teachers in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America who are using literacy and literature to better students' lives. He currently advises writers, illustrators, and editors in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania to produce contemporary books for children; and also works with teachers in the Caucasus region to develop assessment and teaching tools for children from internal refugee families. Favorite books as a child included: The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol; Uncle Wiggly Stories and Dr. Doolittle; and also Tom Swift, and the All-About Books.

<b>Miriam Martinez</b> is a teacher educator at the University of Texas at San Antonio who loves nothing more than getting lost in good books, including children's books, of course! She is recipient of the International Reading Association's Arbuthnot Award which honors outstanding university teachers of children's literature. Dr. Martinez coedited Book Talk and Beyond: Children and Teachers Respond to Literature (1995) and What a Character! Character Study as a Gateway to Literary Understanding (2005), both published by the International Reading Association. She served for seven years as the coeditor of "Bookalogues," a children's book review column in the journal Language Arts. She is publicity chair for the Children's Literature Assembly. The focus of her research and writing is on ways of bringing children and books together to foster students' literary and literacy development. Favorite books as a child included: Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss; The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright; Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright; Dangerous Island by Helen Mather-Smith Mindlin; and The Bobbsey Twins in Mexico by Laura Lee Hope.

<b>Junko Yokota</b> is the director of the Center for Teaching through Children's Books and a professor emerita of National Louis University in Chicago, Illinois. She was a classroom teacher and a school librarian during the first ten years of her career. Her publications include articles and review columns in a wide variety of reading/language arts and children's literature journals, chapters in professional books, and Kaleidoscope: A Multicultural Booklist for Grades K-8 published by the National Council of Teachers of English. She has served on the Caldecott and Newbery Award Committees, chaired the Batchelder Award Committee, and a judge on the Audies Awards. Junko is past president of the United States Board on Books for Young People (the US national section of IBBY) and a recipient of the Virginia Hamilton Award for Contribution to Multicultural Literature. She has served two terms on the Hans Christian Andersen Jury to select the author and illustrator winners of the highest international award for children's literature. Having grown up in Japan, her favorite childhood books were in her first language.