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End of Week 2


At the end of my second week at the University of Arizona, I am starting to settle in.
I now have a staff ID number and a Staff ID card which has allowed me email, library and internet access, and I have joined the university recreation centre where I am able to swim and attend yoga classes.  I am really enjoying these facilities!

While here I have the opportunity to sit in on a couple of courses. I have already mentioned the one called the  Critical Content Analysis of Text and Image. This last week we used some of the techniques we’ve learned to examine some of the books in the U.S. IBBY Outstanding International Book Awards. This award has been awarded since 2006 in an effort to encourage US publishers to publish books published outside the United States, thus allowing US children to develop global awareness. One of my favourites from last week comes from Tara Press in India. It’s called  Hope is a GirlSelling Fruit by Amriti Das.  Not only is the art stunning, the story is an inspirational story of self determination.

I am also sitting in on a course called Language Reading and Culture: Gender and Sexuality in Literature for Children/Adolescents. This week we looked at a fabulous graphic biography by Isabel Quintaro and Zeke Pena about the Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, a very famous Mexican photographer whose black and white images are stunning. The text and image of the book itself, entitled Photographic. The Life of Graciela Iturbide, is a very stunning design of black and white graphic panels punctuated by some of Iturbide’s photographs, some of which are of the Mexican muxes, or transgender community. The author is visiting Worlds of Words next week, and I am looking forward to meeting her. She has also written a YA novel and a gorgeous picturebook with English and Spanish versions.

This week I have also given my first public lecture, entitled 'Introducing Aotearoa/New Zealand through Children's Literature'. It was held at lunchtime in the beautiful space of the Worlds of Words main library, and we made a display of New Zealand books for the audience to browse through before and after.  I had some good questions and discussion afterwards, and am pleased to have been able to share my ideas an New Zealand's amazing children's literature in this forum.



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