The Kerlan Award: Is Change is Good?

Why is the Kerlan Award Ceremony Being Held During the Week and At Night?

Our long-term Kerlan Friends may have noticed a change in the Kerlan Award Ceremony and want to know why it is no longer a luncheon.

The short answers are

• Attendance has been declining for years despite our efforts to get the word out.

• Because of increased expenses, the event was getting increasingly harder to fund without raising the price of the meal to an unreasonable amount.

• We wanted to open the event to a wider audience without charging a fee.

• The weekday events that we have held with John Scieszka, Raina Telgemeier, Leonard Marcus have been sold-out with an extremely positive responses from a diversity of children’s literature constituents.

A Little Background

Since 1975 the Children’s Literature Research Collections have awarded a prize to an author or illustrator in the field of children’s literature, representing “singular attainment in the creation of children’s literature.” This book is an anthology of the acceptance speeches of these winners, supplemented by biographic material and related manuscripts or preliminary drawings of artwork.

Over the years, the award ceremony has been a variety of events including a banquet dinner and luncheons.

We hope you will be able to join us to honor Matthew Holm and Jennifer Holm for their outstanding body of work and generosity in their donations to the Kerlan Collection.

https://www.continuum.umn.edu/umnlib/event/2017-kerlan-award-ceremony/

Please help us make this years’ event a roaring success. Please spread the word. Let teachers, librarians, parents, and researchers know that we want everyone to experience this opportunity to hear Matt and Jenni talk about their creative process.