CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

The Children’s Book Council of Australia biennial conference has just concluded in an autumnal Melbourne with the theme of All the Wild Wonders, the title of an Elizabeth Honey poem. The opportunity to network with colleagues always enriches the experience of any conference, so break times were also terrific catch-up times.

Three dominant themes seemed to emerge over the course of the three days:

• The importance of having a teacher-librarian in every school in Australia (and an exhortation for each delegate to lobby their member of Parliament over this issue).
• The literacy debate. Time and time again concerns were expressed about the obsession by governments with functional literacy at the expense of real literature. Jack Zipes passionately believes that we are ‘endumbing’ children and teaching them to misread i.e. read non-reflectively for quick absorption of information in order to pass tests.
• The trend in publishing towards sequel literature and multimedia spinoffs such as games and films coming at the expense of quality literature.

Highlights are always subjective, of course, but the standing ovation for Sonya Hartnett after she had opened the conference; Shaun Tan’s illuminating keynote; the enthusiasm of Wendy Cooling and the sheer niceness (not to mention talent) of Neil Gaiman were certainly some. Oh, and some of us learned a lot about manga from Queenie Chan, and we were all blown away by the surprise package that was Bernard Beckett.

And then there was the chance to get up close and personal with Australian and international authors, who patiently and cheerfully signed copies of their books, despite lengthy queues.

In two years, the CBCA moves to Queensland for its 10th national conference that references that Brisbane landmark - the aptly named Storey Bridge. Across the Story Bridge will be held between 29 April-2 May 2010. Make it a diary date claimer.