Today's young readers are tomorrow's problem-solvers, whose task, asserts Linda Sue Park, Newberry Medal award winning author of children’s books, is nothing less than saving the planet and human decency. She will talk about the importance of using a wide variety of lenses when writing, reading, and teaching literature and history to young students. While her own work focuses mainly on the Korean and Korean American experience, the attitude needed to nurture in young readers applies to all children's books—the awareness that the memories of individuals are all too often undervalued, distorted, or erased when history becomes canon.
Ms. Park's Athenaeum event is co-sponsored by the Center for Writing and Public Discourse, the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, and the history department, all at CMC.
Linda Sue Park is the author of many books for young readers, including the 2002 Newbery Medal winner, A Single Shard, and the NYTimes bestseller, A Long Walk to Water. Her most recent title is The One Thing You’d Save, a collection of linked poems.
Park is the founder and curator of Allida Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. She serves on the advisory boards of We Need Diverse Books and the Rabbit hOle museum project, and created the kiBooka website to highlight children’s books created by the Korean diaspora.
In addition to writing essays for numerous publications, Park has served as a panelist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, the PEN Naylor grant, and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award. In her travels to promote reading and writing, she has visited more than 30 countries and 49 states. She knows very well that she will never be able to read every great book ever written, but she keeps trying anyway.
Ms. Park's Athenaeum event is co-sponsored by the Center for Writing and Public Discourse, the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, and the history department, all at CMC.
