Instructional Materials Center

Free! 2025 App State Children's Literature Symposium
Featuring Orbis Pictus Honor- and Sibert Medal Honor-Winning author/illustrator Katherine Roy!

Register to attend

Children’s Literature Symposium Events:

#1 Wednesday, April 9th @ 6:00pm in RCOE Room 124 on the Boone Campus:  Interactive Art/Science Night for Families, University Students/Faculty/Staff, and Educators.  Children and adults of all ages are welcome to attend.

#2 Thursday, April 10th @ 6:00pm in the Hickory Campus Atrium or Virtual:  Keynote Presentation for University Students/ Faculty/Staff, Librarians, and Educators.

Registration is required for all events!

Presented by the Appalachian State University Libraries and the Reich College of Education.

Katherine Roy is an award-winning and best-selling author and illustrator of science-based books for children, including the Robert F. Sibert Honor Book Neighborhood Sharks: Hunting with the Great Whites of California’s Farallon Islands, How to Be an Elephant: Growing Up in the African Wild, and Making More: How Life Begins. She is also the illustrator of numerous other books, including Otis and Will Discover the Deep and Sea Without a Shore, by Barb Rosenstock, Red Rover by Richard Ho, and NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book The Fire of Stars, by Kirsten W. Larson.

For the interactive art/science family night in Boone on April 9th, Katherine Roy will focus on her book Sea Without a Shore, an informational picture book that explores the rich and diverse communities of marine life that develop on the clumps of Sargassum seaweed for which the Sargasso Sea is named. Katherine Roy’s website describes the book in this way:

“From bryozoans and snails to shrimps, eels, swordfish, and whales, the Sargasso Sea provides a home to countless types of marine life, thanks to the prevalence of macroalgae called sargassum. Following a single blade of this extraordinary seaweed as it grows and spreads, readers see what it provides for the sea’s organisms: a base for hydroids and tube worms to filter and feed, shelter for anemones and nudibranchs and their nutritious waste, hunting grounds for crabs and amphipods, and a source of nourishment and protection for the fish, birds, whales, and reptiles that feed on these smaller creatures.

Through a widening scope on this intricate interdependence, [this book] celebrates one of our planet’s most diverse and important ecosystems and the unassuming seaweed that sustains it.” 

Additionally, the book has been called a “poetic exploration and celebration of diversity, with a strong message about the abilities of communities to grow and thrive even where there might seem to be nothing to support them” (Harrison, n.d.).

As part of the art/science night, Katherine Roy will guide audience members in creating their own Sargasso Sea out of materials like paper plates and egg cartons. We hope you’ll join us in the unique opportunity to meet an award-winning children’s book author/illustrator whose work can help children better understand unique ecosystems and the interconnected nature of our world as a “set of systems in delicate balance with one another” (Climate Lit Glossary, n.d). 

Katherine Roy is just one example of children’s book author/illustrators who are engaged in creating books that children, families, and educators can use to further the aims of universal climate literacy. The Center for Climate Literacy at the University of Minnesota argues that “climate literacy is best learned through engagement with story. Literature for young people is ground zero for addressing climate change. Why? Because young people have more stake in the future than anyone else” (Climate Lit Mission, n.d.). 

Children and adults of all ages are welcome to attend. Registration is required, and we hope you’ll join us! 

To register, please go to https://universityspecialevents.appstate.edu/ChildrensLit.