English professor to receive award for scholarship, service to field of children’s literature

Mark West, chair of the English Department, will receive the 2016 Anne Deveraux Jordan Award.

Presented by the Children’s Literature Association, the award is a kind of lifetime achievement award, recognizing significant contributions in scholarship and service to the field of children’s literature over the course of the scholar’s career. West will receive the award at the association’s annual conference in June 2016.

“For somebody to give me an award that recognizes something that is so fundamental to who I am resonates with me in a deeper sort of way,” West said. “It’s something I care deeply about.”

West has taught children’s literature courses at UNC Charlotte every semester since he joined the faculty in 1984. He draws from his eclectic background, including his doctoral work in American studies, and teaches his children’s literature classes from an interdisciplinary point of view.

“I’m bringing in the various things that I have studied over the years from different disciplines, whether it’s history, whether it’s psychology, whether it’s art, and I tie that into children’s literature,” he said. “I want students to understand the connection between the history of childhood and children’s literature. It’s attitudes that we have about childhood that in some way shape the way we write for children. If you think of children in a certain way, then you will write children’s books to reflect that belief system.”

UNC Charlotte is a powerhouse in children’s literature, with one of the strongest programs in the nation, West stated. Scholars approach the field from three main areas of emphasis. Some consider it from the context of teaching reading and writing skills. The second group studies children’s literature within the context of library science.

Others – including West – think of children’s literature as literature.

“So it’s taught as literary works, in the same way that you would teach any other literary work,” he said. “It’s just that the difference between children’s literature and say, an American literature class, is the intended audience. The intended audience with children’s literature is children. You can have any kind of literature you can possibly imagine. It could be fantasy or realism; it could be from different time periods. As long as the intended audience is children, we would classify it as children’s literature.”