Picturebook pitches

Packing a lot of punch in a deceptively small package, children’s books are (as author/critic Amanda Craig says) “one of the most important forms of writing we have, and the most overlooked. . . . From them, as much as from parents, a child receives an idea of how the world could or should be.” Picturebooks are among a child’s earliest encounters with culture, and their interplay of text and image provides early instruction in visual literacy. At the same time, “they also give a child a lever with which to prise open the world. They tell us that life is much bigger and more complex than we might have imagined, and that it contains people who are both like and unlike ourselves” ("Why This is a Golden Age for Children's Literature").

Throughout the term, students worked on a “digital curation for activism” project, ultimately aimed at pitching for inclusion in a Children’s Literature course a banned or challenged book that they deemed to have exceptional transformational potential, one that might encourage its readers to think more broadly about the world and a life that "contains people who are both like and unlike" themselves.

The student "book pitch" exhibits:

• Pitching Love in the Library (by Ashley Tenn)

• Pitching Outside Over There (by Sabrina Beaton)

• Pitching This Day In June (by Brooklyn Wilkins)

• Pitching We Are Water Protectors (by Hailey Marchand)

Sources

Craig, Amanda. "Why This is a Golden Age for Children's Literature." The Independent, 24 June 2015, https://www.amandacraig.com/journalism/why-this-is-a-golden-age-for-childrens-literature-childrens-books-are-one-of-the-most-important-forms-of-writing-we-have/. Accessed 04 June 2024.