Global warming is a dominant narrative of our time, and we are surrounded by stories of a doomed future of environmental catastrophe. But landscape and our relationship with nature have long preoccupied children’s literature in the UK and internationally. For their 2008 conference, the British Section of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) and the NCRCL (National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature) want to look at how the environment, and the human/child relationship with the natural world is treated in books for young readers. We will also examine how children’s publishing can respond to issues of consumption and sustainability. For details, go to www.ncrcl.ac.uk.
We would particularly welcome international perspectives and contributions from academics and others interested in any of these areas. Brief accounts of papers given will be published in the Spring 2009 issue of IBBYLink, the journal of British IBBY, and we hope that the proceedings of the conference will be published shortly afterwards in full in book form.
The deadline for proposals is 30 June 2008. Please email a 200 word abstract (for a twenty minute paper) as an attached Word document to Laura Atkins at L.Atkins@roehampton.ac.uk. Please also include a short biography and affiliation.
Contact Laura Atkins with questions or for information about becoming a sponsor or exhibitor at the conference:
Laura Atkins
Conference Manager
National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature
Digby Stuart College
Roehampton University
Roehampton Lane, London SW15 5PH
0208 392 3008 (Mondays)