Milner Library’s Special Collections is home to several noteworthy children’s literature collections, including a Lois Lenski Collection, the Will Johnson Collection and a Historical Textbook Collection. With the exception of the last collection, the records for most of the materials held are available through our online catalog.
Lecture Series
The Lois Lenski Children's Literature Lecture Series was instituted in 1994 to honor children's author Lois Lenski, who gave so generously of her time and her papers to the students of Illinois State University. Co-sponsored by Milner Library and the Department of English, the lecture is addressed annually to members of the local and university communities.
1994 |
Nurseries Without Walls: Maurice Sendak's We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy
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1995 |
Frances Hodgson Burnett and Katherine Paterson Within an Historical Age |
1996 |
Adapting Books to Films: What is Noteworthy in Disney's Bambi
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1997 |
Drawn from Life: Lenski and Lovelace |
1998 |
African-American Children's Literature: Back to the Future |
1999 |
What Makes A Children's Classic: Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden as Case Study |
2000 |
Consuming Passions: The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary Picture Books |
2001 |
Who Stole The Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum and American Children's Literature |
2002 |
Words into Pictures |
2003 |
Consolation Prize: Why Children's Poetry is Merely Funny, Therapeutic, or Utilitarian, and What We Might Do To Save It |
2004 |
The Curious History of the Study of Children's Literature, or, How Did We Get Here? What Are We Doing Here? and Where Should We Go Now? |
2005 |
The Mythology of the Antique: Medievalism in Australian Children's Books |
2006 |
And Now a Major Motion Picture: The Translation of Children's Literature into Film |
2007 |
Before the Beginning and After the End: Forewards, Afterwards, and Other Words in Children's Literature |
2008 |
Pinocchio's Advenures in Soviet Wonderland: Contexts and Challenges of Soviet Children's Literature |
2009 |
Indigenizing the Creation and Consumption of Children's Literature |
2010 |
The Evolution Continues: Young Adult Literature Today and Tomorrow |
2011 |
Crisis & Opportunity: The Challenge of African American Youth Literature |
2012 |
Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature |
2013 |
The Dilemma of Didacticism |
2014 |
Black Childhood Abroad: Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemp’s Popo and Fifina
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2015 |
The Elephants in the Room: The Challenges of Diversity in Youth Literature |