Welcome to The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
We are one of the nation’s leading children’s book review journals for school and public librarians. We provide concise summaries and critical evaluations to help you find the books you need for your library’s collection.
March’s Big Picture
Revisions and reinventions of Shakespearean classics are nothing new in youth literature, but in this month’s Big Picture, Enter the Body, author Joy McCullough gives voice to the Bard’s dead heroines Juliet, Cordelia, and Ophelia. At first pass, their tellings cover familiar ground, the girls are not content with illuminating the stories many readers already know. So they try again: how might they shape their stories differently, given the chance? Suppose a mother lives; suppose a father listens. Suppose a lover is a true partner. What then? Can tragedy be transformed? If so, how? If not, is a better way possible, even if the end is the same?
We’re hiring!
The Bulletin is looking for new reviewers to join our team! Applications will be accepted until January 15, 2023. To view the full job description, click here.
2022 Blue Ribbons Announced
Our best books of the year for 2022 is available now! We were lucky this year to see a sizeable increase in the diverse identities and ideas represented in literature for youth, and with that in mind, we couldn’t help but expand our own award list—there were just too many stellar examples of our field’s growing inclusivity. Happy reading!
75 Years of Children’s Literature
The 75th volume year of the Bulletin is being commemorated in a digital timeline exhibit at https://ccb.ischool.illinois.edu/ccb75/. As the Bulletin prepares to move into its future, take a look at its past, in glorious black and white and on bleed-through onionskin paper.
The Center for Children’s Books
The Bulletin is partnered with the Center for Children’s Books, a research center whose mission is to facilitate the creation and dissemination of exemplary and progressive research and scholarship related to youth-focused resources, literature, and librarianship.
Cover illustration from Maple & Rosemary. Text copyright © 2023 by Alison James. Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Jennifer K. Mann. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Holiday House.
