Américas Award

Laretta Henderson is associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she teaches courses in children’s and young adult literature.

• Chapter 1: The Américas Award: Latino/a Youth Literature for the K-12 ClassroomLaretta HendersonChapter 2: Why does Latino/a Youth Literature Matter? How Children and Young Adults Learn about RaceErin WinklerChapter 3: Envisioning Tomorrow: The Musings of Julie Kline on the History and Future of the Américas Award Ruth Quiroa Chapter 4: Educating for Global Competence through the Américas AwardDenise Woltering VargasChapter 5: The Américas Award, Cultural Competence, and the Politics of Publishing Jamie NaidooChapter 6: Book Awards, Social Responsibility and Cultural ContextualizationLaretta HendersonChapter 7: The Américas Award Books in Early Childhood Education: Reconceptualizing the Conversation about Diversity with Pre-service TeachersLeanne EvansChapter 8: Cultural and Social Justice Issues in the Américas Award Winning Poetry AnthologiesVivian Yenika-AgbawChapter 9: Borders, Home, Spirituality, and Language: Sociopolitical Themes in Latino/a Children's Literature 1990-2015Patricia Enciso and Carmen L. MedinaChapter 10: Border Crossing: Immigration in the Américas Award Winning BooksRuth McKoy LoweryChapter 11: The Américas Award on Screen: Promoting Critical Engagement with Literature via Multimodal CompositionCandance M. Doerr-StevensChapter 12: The Américas Award on Stage: A Call for More Latino Youth TheaterRoxanne Schroeder-ArceChapter 13: Translation and Transformation: The Status of Américas Award Books Translation in East AsiaWooseob JeongChapter 14: Public Library Service to Latino/a CommunitiesColleen E. MarshIndexAbout the Contributors

Containing essays from a range of critical viewpoints and perspectives on Latino/a children’s and young adult literature of the Americas, The Américas Award is...intellectually stimulating in ways that surpass the limited confines of its specialty subject matter.... By pulling together many disparate strands within this contentious field, the collection provides a timely and astute critique of the crisis of acculturation affecting American children’s literature today and its potentially devastating implications for multicultural awareness and harmony.... This volume, therefore, successfully shows the relevance of Latino/a literature not only as an important genre in its own right, but also as a lens through which to view the problems of race and culture that pervade American society, and as an example of the ways in which the children’s literature genre functions as a tool of acculturation and division.... The Américas Award: Honoring Latino/a Children’s and Young Adult Literature of the Americas provides an inspirational range of perspectives on the difficult question of multiculturalism for children.