The Center for Children’s and Young Adult Literature is an accessible and comprehensive resource for all people who wish to engage and empower young readers through quality contemporary children’s and young adult literature.
We promise to help engage and empower young readers by connecting them with the latest and greatest children’s and YA books.
—Susan Groenke, Director
CCYAL staff at author Kekla Magoon event
Guided by this belief, it is the mission of the center to provide access to and information about quality literature and to provide resources to current and future teachers, librarians, community members, and scholars in order to create engagement and empowerment around reading for young people.
We accomplish this mission in the following ways:
- Maintaining a browsing collection highlighting the newest children’s and YA books released over the last 18 months.
- Creating partnerships with literacy scholars and practitioners committed to educator and family support, advocacy, research, and outreach.
- Offering customized professional development workshops for school districts to incorporate relevant and engaging children’s and young adult literature into their curricula.
- Creating and facilitating outreach to the community through author visits, a We Read YA book club, Best of the Best book workshops, contests, and other opportunities to create an experience that will foster social justice, empathy, and joy around literature.