Given the legacy of 500 years of colonization, sharing and telling stories for children and young adults about difficult truths is important in moving forward towards reconciliation. As part of the journey, increased sensibilities and approaches are needed and give rise to many questions. How can children’s literature be decolonized and made appropriate for 21st century learners? What role do writers, illustrators, teachers, teacher-librarians and children’s librarians play in the process? What ethical and respectful approaches are employed to decolonize the creation, dissemination and use of literature, especially about issues that readers find stressful and upsetting? Who should tell the stories? What are the risks and benefits of appropriation and commodification of cultural heritage? And what critical analysis skills are essential when promoting and sharing literature that is both historic and an ongoing expression of colonization? Join our School Library Day conversation, to hear from our panelists.
Event Details:
When: October 26, 2016 4:00-6:00 pm
Where: Irving K. Barber Centre Chilcotin Board Room (Room 256)
Panelists:
Maggie De Vries will talk as a writer and editor. She edited Fatty Legs and A Stranger at Home and wrote the teen novel, Rabbit Ears.
Gordon Powell will provide insights as a teacher, teacher-librarian and district principal for Aboriginal Education in Surrey about First Nations collections and integrating aboriginal content.
Julie Flett will speak about her work as a Cree-Metis Canadian author and illustrator and how she indigenizes picture books for children.
Arushi Raina will comment about apartheid and growing up as a teenager in South Africa and how that influenced her debut young adult novel, When Morning Comes.
Free event, featuring light food and refreshments.
Webcasts of past National School Library Day Events include:
“Engaging Youth with Indigenous Materials in Libraries and Classrooms”
“Connecting Authors and Readers: Documenting Atlantic Canadian Books for Youth”
“The Place and Space for Canadian Children’s Literature in Our Lives and Libraries“
National School Library Day Colloquium is hosted by the UBC Education Library and UBC iSchool.
A Life Sciences Institute Public Talk
TomoeArts will be screening a series of full live video performances from their 
7:00-8:30 pm
Akoya is a scene from the puppet play Dan no Ura Kabuto Gunki which first premiered in 1732 and was later restaged as a kabuki play. This scene, originally known as the “Koto Torture Scene”, shows Shigetada questioning the courtesan Akoya on where her lover, the defeated Heike warrior Kagekiyo, is. Shigetada forces Akoya to answer his questions while she plays various traditional Japanese instruments such as the koto, shamisen and kokyû (lap fiddle). The actor who plays Akoya requires years of special training to be able to play all three musical instruments on stage for this performance.
7:00-8:30 pm
Simon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at UBC, as well as an associate in UBC’s Liu Institute for Global Issues, Biodiversity Research Centre and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Atmospheric Sciences Program. He came to UBC after a few years in the Science, Technology and Environment Program in the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He spent his undergraduate days at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He also did a master’s degree in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and a PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin with the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment.
Economics at the University of British Columbia, studying the economics of urban transportation. Sumeet completed his BA in Economics at the University of Mumbai and then his Masters at the University of Delhi before moving to the USA to complete his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland.
Dr. Sybil Seitzinger is the executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and a professor in the School of Environmental Studies.
School of Community and Regional Planning and Associate Faculty Member in the Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science. He is a Canada Research Chair nominee in Urban Systems and Co-Director on the Master of Engineering Leadership (MEL) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also a Visiting Research Associate at the Environmental Change Institute and a former Oxford Martin Fellow at the University of Oxford.
