Project Details
A Guide to Children’s Literature is a project that was funded through Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries’ Affordable Course Content Awards as an Open Education Resource (OER) text to reduce the course costs for students in the Children’s Literature course in the VCU School of Education and those studying children’s literature across the United States. This text is also designed to be a resource for in-service teachers, librarians, parents/caregivers, and community members who work with children. The goal is to instill a love of books and reading in our children.
About the Authors
Lisa Cipolletti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University where she serves as the program coordinator for the BSEd in Elementary Education and Teaching program. She teaches literacy courses to pre-service early/elementary teachers and also serves as a student advisor. In 2022, she was named the Ruth Harris Fellow, and in this role she collaborates with a team on initiatives related to dyslexia and language learning disabilities. She is a licensed reading specialist K-12, and prior to coming to VCU, she taught elementary school in Virginia.
Valerie Robnolt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the School of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University and serves as the coordinator of the Reading and TESOL programs. She teaches pre-service and inservice teachers methods of teaching literacy and language arts. Dr. Robnolt has almost 30 years of teaching experience as an elementary classroom teacher, reading specialist, literacy coordinator, and college professor.
Elizabeth Morris is a native of Richmond, Virginia. She is currently the Youth Services Coordinator and Children’s Librarian in the Richmond Public Library system. She taught elementary schools, grades 3-5, for 20 years before changing careers to be a librarian. She has a passion for working with children and instilling the love of reading within them. Her favorite thing is to see children find that book they love and then take off with their reading skills.
Special Thanks
We are deeply appreciative that Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, University of South Florida, gave us permission to use and adapt her OER text published in 2016, The Inside, Outside, Upside Downs of Children’s Literature: From Poets and Pop-ups to Princesses and Porridge. We provide the licensing agreement in the chapters in which we include portions of this text.
We have special appreciation for Jessica Kirschner, Open Educational Resources Librarian with VCU Libraries, for her constant support, guidance, and encouragement throughout the process of creating this OER. We could not have done it without her.
We also want to give a special thanks to Kasey Dye, doctoral student in the Ph.D. in Special Education program in the VCU School of Education, and Erin Drulis, doctoral student in the Ph.D. in Education, Curriculum, Culture and Change concentration in the VCU School of Education, for their help to enter our chapters into the online format and Julia Martinez, Open Affordable Course Content Publications Assistant with VCU Libraries, for her work on formatting and making the OER accessible.
