Wednesday, February 21, 2018

National Latino Children’s Literature Conference





The 2018 National Latino Children’s Literature Conference will showcase the works of authors, illustrators, and scholars which embody Latino culture and art as a means to promote literacy and reading in Latino children.

Highlighting the literacy needs of Latino children and their families, the conference also serves as a forum for librarians, educators, researchers, and students to openly discuss future information and education needs necessary to promote Latino literacy.

This year’s conference will be held at UTSA’s Downtown Campus in San Antonio, TX.

 February 22-24, 2018 
UTSA’s Downtown Campus
San Antonio, TX





Keynote Speakers


Rafael López

Rafael López is an internationally recognized illustrator and artist. A children’s book illustrator, he won the 2016 Pura Belpré medal from the American Library Association for his illustrations for Drum Dream Girl and the 2010 Pura Belpré medal for Book Fiesta. In 2012, he was selected by the Library of Congress to create the National Book Festival poster. He has been awarded the 2017 Tomás Rivera Children’s Book Award, three Pura Belpré honors and two Américas Book Awards. The illustrations created by López bring diverse characters to children’s books and he is driven to produce and promote books that reflect and honor the lives of all young people.


Monica Brown

Monica Brown, Ph.D. is the author of many award-winning books for children, including Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People (Henry Holt), winner of the Américas Award for Children’s Literature and an Orbis Pictus Honor for Outstanding Nonfiction, and Waiting for the Biblioburro (Random House), a Christopher Award winner. Her picture book Side by Side: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/Lado a lado: La historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez (Rayo/HarperCollins) was an NAACP Image Award nominee and Tejas Star Book Award finalist. Monica’s books are inspired by her PeruvianAmerican heritage and desire to share Latino/a stories with children. “I write from a place of deep passion, joy, and commitment to producing the highest possible quality of literature for children. In my biographies, the lives of my subjects are so interesting and transformational that I am simply giving them voice for a young audience. I don’t think it is ever too early to introduce children to the concepts of magical realism, social justice, and dreaming big!”


Margarita Robleda Moguel

Author of over 30 Latino/a children’s books and winner of the Juanes de la Cabada Fine Art of Children’s Tale Award.

From Margarita: On the migration card, when I leave Mexico, I put in occupation: to be happy. In doing so I remember that everything I do has that goal. Happiness, not as a state of mind, but as realizing my sense of life: being a better person. I think the frog is my nagual. Through his eyes I see things that I have the impression that no one else sees, these discoveries I translate into songs and stories, articles for the newspaper, conference themes, and in recent times in poems and photographs, such as those of the Moon. For many years I have dedicated myself to sing and tell stories to children, now I have opened the age limit until the age of 112, because I consider that the 113 as that changes the character. I struggle day by day so as not to lose my temper.


Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Ms. Mccall is the author of Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low Books), a novel in verse. Under the Mesquite received the prestigious Pura Belpre Author Award, was a William C. Morris Finalist, received the Lee Bennett Hopkins/International Literacy Promising Poet Award, the Tomas Rivera Children’s Book Award, and was included in Kirkus Review’s Best Teen Books of 2011, among many other accolades. 


Ms. Garcia McCall was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. She immigrated with her family to the United States when she was six years old and grew up in Eagle Pass, Texas (the setting of both her novels and most of her poems). She is currently a high school English teacher in San Antonio.




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