Naomi C. Chase lecture in children’s literature
THE WONDER OF IT ALLThe Chase Lecture honors the memory of Dr. Naomi Chase, a classroom teacher who became professor at the University of Minnesota, and was especially passionate about empowering children as readers and writers.
Rachel Carson wrote a book, The Sense of Wonder, about sharing the wonder of the natural world with children. In that book she said, "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder," writes Carson, “he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." It has been one of my goals to share with children and all readers stories that remind us of the "joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in." Among other things, I hope to talk about finding such stories, shaping such stories within the constraints of non-fiction, and the pleasures of sharing those stories.
Past lectures
The 2023 Chase Lecture featured Shannon Gibney
March 23, 2023Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018) young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, her new novel, The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, explores themes of transracial adoption through speculative memoir (Dutton, 2023). Gibney’s other upcoming publications include the picture books Sam and the Incredible African and American Food Fight (University of Minnesota Press, 2023), and Where We Come From (Lerner, 2022; coauthored), and a YA anthology of stories by adoptees about adoptees, co-edited with Nicole Chung (HarperTeen, 2023).
The 2024 Chase Lecture featuring Jacqueline Briggs Martin
April 16, 2024Jacqueline Briggs Martin is the author of twenty-one picture books for children including Snowflake Bentley, which received a Caldecott medal in 1999.
Chef Roy Choi and the Streetfood Remix (2017; co-written with June Jo Lee, illustrated by Man One) received a Siebert Honor and an Orbis Pictus Honor.
Begin with a Bee (2021; co-written with Phyllis Root and Liza Ketchum) illustrated by Claudia McGehee received a Riverby Award which recognizes exceptional non-fiction natural history books for young readers. Begin with a Bee was also named a Green Earth honor book.
Creekfinding: A True Story (2017; illustrated by Claudia McGehee) received the Green Earth Award for Environmental Writing for Children. Creekfinding also received a Riverby Award.
Martin has been on the faculty at Hamline University’s Low Residency MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and taught creative writing at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival.