Upcoming Events
Mock Caldecott: Come read and discuss the best picture books of 2017 and vote for your favorites! Details TBA.
Past Events
Reading I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios (Released Feb 3, 2015), a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, April 13, 4:00 pm)
Constructing the Island of the Blue Dolphins’ Archive: A talk by Dr. Sara Schwebel, Judaica Suite, located on the 2nd floor of Smathers Library (East) (Monday, April 20, 4:00 pm)
Jessica Oreck, screening and discussion of Ms. Oreck’s latest film, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga. (Tuesday, December 13, 4:00 pm)
Reading All Fall Down by Ally Carter (Released Jan 27, 2015), a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, March 9, 4:00 pm)
Changing the Game: The Digital Assembly Spring 2015 Workshop, Feb. 19th (4-7 pm) & Feb. 20th (9-12 pm), UF Dauer 215. This workshop introduces approaches to studying digital games, demoing how to design and modify game hardware and software.
Reading Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero, a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, February 9, 4:00 pm)
Reading A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray, a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, January 12, 4:00 pm)
Tomas Kubinek: Certified Lunatic, a comic genius, virtuoso vaudevillain and all-round charmer who gives audiences an utterly joyous experience they will remember for a lifetime, Citrus Learning and Conference Center, College of Central Florida (Sunday, December 7, 3:00 pm, $15)
Reading Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan, a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, November 24, 4:00 pm)
Reading Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn, a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, October 27, 4:00 pm)
Eric Litwin Writes Pete the Cat , a talk by New York Times best-selling author of the Pete the Cat picture books, Headquarters Library Meeting Room A (Thursday, October 23, 1 pm and 7 pm)
Reading Death Sworn by Leah Cypess, a discussion held by the Young Adult Reading Group (YARG), Pascal’s Coffee House (Monday, September 29, 4:00 pm)
An Evening with Annette Simon, a talk by children’s author and illustrator Annette Simon, Headquarters Library Meeting Room A (Tuesday, September 23, 6:30 pm)
Rumpelstiltskin Puppet Show: a children’s show, Headquarters Library Storywoods Room (Wednesday, July 23, 11 am and 12 pm)
“Private Dramas, Public Dreams: The Street Photographs of Helen Levitt & Friends”: Exhibit at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, on display from Dec. 10 – June 8.
An Evening with Kana Handel, a talk by local artist Kana Handel, Headquarters Library Meeting Room A (Wednesday, April 2, 7 pm)
World of The Yearling: Florida in the 1870s Symposium, multiple presentations about the setting of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ The Yearling, Smathers Library Grand Reading Room, 2nd floor (Friday, February 7, 10 am-3 pm)
Gallery Talk: “Private Dramas, Public Dreams: The Street Photographs of Helen Levitt & Friends, Curator of Photography Carol McCusker discusses the work and film on view in the Helen Levitt exhibition, Harn Museum (Sunday, January 12, 3 pm)
“Looking for Laura: Place, Memory, and the Authentic ‘Little House’,” Michelle McClellan discusses the legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, Ruth McQuown Room, 219 Dauer Hall, (Thursday, January 23, 4:30 pm)
“When Phantasie Takes Flight: the Art & Imagination of Arthur Rackham”: Exhibit co-curated by Suzan A. Alteri and John Ingram, on display from Nov. 12 – Dec. 13, Smathers Library Gallery.
Michael Patrick Hearn, Invited Speaker for the Baldwin Library Speaker Series on Arthur Rackham and Illustration, Smathers Library East Room 1A (Monday, November 18, 6 pm)
Elizabeth Wheeler, author of Asher’s Fault, Headquarters Library Meeting Room A (Tuesday, November 12, 7 pm)
Why Genealogy Matters?: Childhood, Kinship, and American National Identity”: a guest lecture by Dr. Carol Singley, Smather Library East 1A (Wednesday, October 16, 5 pm-7 pm)
“Behind the Art of Grace Lin”: a talk by award-winning children’s author and illustrator Grace Lin, Alachua County Public Library, Headquarters (Wednesday, October 2, 6:30 pm)
“The Game of Clue: Or Mrs. Fenwick (1766-1840), in the Library with a …”: a talk by Dr. Lissa Paul (Thursday, September 19, 5:30-7:30 pm, Smathers Library East, Room 1A)
“Beauties & Beasts @ Halloween”:a talk by Jerry Griswold (Tuesday, October 30th, 7 pm, Smathers Library East, Room 1A)
“Mythical and Magical: 200 years of the Brothers Grimm”: a talk by Maria Tatar (Tuesday, November 13th, 7 pm, Smathers Library East, Room 1A)
“Grimm Changes: From Folk Tale to Fairy Tale”: a Baldwin Library exhibit by curators Suzan Alteri and Jasmine Tran (October 4-December 14, Smathers Library Special & Area Studies Research Room)
IN A NUTSHELL: THE WORLDS OF MAURICE SENDAK
This exhibit was organized by the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia, and developed by Nextbook, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Jewish literature, culture, and ideas, and the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The national tour of the exhibit has been made possible by grants from the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the Righteous Persons Foundation, the David Berg Foundation, and an anonymous donor, with additional support from Tablet Magazine: A New Read on Jewish Life.
LIBRARY OF THE EARLY MIND
A “feature-length documentary film about children’s literature directed by Edward J. Delaney and produced by Edward J. Delaney and Steven Withrow,” Library of the Early Mind: A Grown Up Look at the Art of Children’s Literature will premiere at UF in October 2011, sponsored by the CCLC. Click here to learn more about the film, watch a trailer, and get to know the producers.
ANOMALIES AND CURIOSITIES OF THE BALDWIN
The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature contains more than 100,000 volumes, many of which were used by children. The interaction of the child and the book is evident in the mark of the hand in the Baldwin; there are many examples of marginalia, doodles and inscriptions, bookplates, prize books, crayon scrawl, hand-colored plates, love notes and book anathema. In addition, many of these books have been used so heavily that they expose somnotexts, or sleeping texts, of scrap paper that were bound into the spines of nineteenth century children’s books as padding. These fragments, traditionally referred to as binder’s waste, revel in their eccentricity; handwritten sheet music, surgical texts, advertisements for moth killer, Shakespeare and artifacts of the bindery have all survived in this manner. These unusual para- and peritextual phenomenon will be on display as part of the exhibit curated by Krissy Wilson.
LIZZIE SKURNICK
“Shelf Images: The Sometimes Hilarious, Sometimes Horrifying, Always Edifying History of Girls Through Young Adult Literature,” a lecture by New York Times critic, blogger, and author Lizzie Skurnick will be held on Saturday, February 26th. A roundtable discussion with professors Kenneth Kidd, Stephanie Smith, and Anja Ulanowitz and guest speaker Lizzie Skurnick will start off the afternoon at 1p.m., followed by a brief reception and Ms. Skurnick’s keynote at 3 p.m. Both events will be held in Room 1A of Smathers Library East on the University of Florida campus.
Past Initiatives
“Recess!” — a daily radio program of reviews, historical and biographical notes, commentaries, interviews, and sound essays that explores the world of children’s culture, past and present.
A series of documentary films based on historical materials from the Baldwin Library.
An exhibition of the boyhood photographs of the French photographer, Jacques-Henri Lartigue at the Samuel P. Harn Museum, University of Florida. (Summer 2005 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Transforming Encounters Colloquia Series: I (Spring 2004) Libraries Unbound, II (Spring 2005) Children and Science, Imagination and Inquiry, and III (Spring 2006) Children and the Environment.