Editorial

Abstract

It is our pleasure to be contributing to this editorial for The Deakin Review of Children’s Literature:

My name is Lynne Wiltse and I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada). I teach courses in language and literacy and children’s literature, and have eagerly read each issue of The Deakin since its inception in 2011. I have made sure to introduce my students to this valuable resource. For example, I have the undergraduate students in my children’s literature course undertake an assignment which requires them to explore the site in detail and compare it to its predecessor, the Deakin Newsletter. I was intrigued when I came across the special issue that featured Joanne de Groot’s teacher-librarian students recommending “great new books.” At the time, I was teaching a graduate course, Children's Literature in the Elementary School (EDEL 510). I thought how I would love to have my students involved in such an initiative. The next time I was due to teach the course, I contacted the editorial team to discuss the possibility. As it happened, Joanne had done the same. The editorial team kindly offered for us to share a special double issue; my students would review books that are geared primarily for an elementary audience, while Joanne's class would review books that are intended for a secondary audience.

I made space in the course so that my students, all of whom are practicing teachers, could have the invaluable opportunity to review contemporary books for children. I was delighted with the diverse range of books my students selected for review. In our course, we discussed the importance of authentic writing opportunities for children; this certainly proved to be an authentic writing experience for my students, one that they embraced with enthusiasm! We are very excited to see their published reviews in The Deakin, and we are looking forward to reading the reviews of the students in EDEL 546 as well. I thank Kim Frail and the rest of the editorial team of The Deakin Review of Children’s Literature for their support of this special issue.

Lynne Wiltse
Associate Professor
Department of Elementary Education
University of Alberta
email: lynne.wiltse@ualberta.ca

My name is Joanne de Groot and I am an instructor in the Teacher-Librarianship by Distance Learning (TLDL) program at the University of Alberta.   Students in this class are teachers and teacher-librarians from across Canada, particularly British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nunavut.  We even had a student in EDEL 546 who is currently teaching in Kathmandu!

EDEL 546 is an Introduction to Resources for Children and Young Adults and provides students with an introduction to literature and other print and digital media for young people in schools and libraries.  Throughout this course, students are given opportunities to learn how to select and use resources in their classrooms and school libraries.  The major assignment asks small groups of students to develop proposals to build a focused collection of resources for a school library.  This group project required students to select an area or topic and then create a selection list of resources they would purchase to build their collection, identify selection criteria, and provide links to professional reviews.  Students were also asked to write professional reviews of two titles published in 2013 or 2014 that would be suitable for a high school audience. This term’s groups focused on topics such as high interest/low vocabulary titles, graphic novels, pleasure or recreational reading, and Immigrant Voices.   Many of the reviews submitted for this project are now included in this issue of The Deakin.  The task of writing reviews that might be published in a reviewing journal made this assignment more relevant and interesting for the students and I am very pleased to be able to share their work with you now.

Joanne de Groot
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Elementary Education
University of Alberta
email: degroot@ualberta.ca