Third-grade teacher Grace Bittle wiped tears from her eyes as she spoke with her favorite children’s author, Joanna Ho, following a Shenandoah University’s Children’s Literature Conference session at the end of June in Winchester, Virginia.  

Bittle, who teaches at Potomac Intermediate School in Berkeley County, West Virginia, told Ho about how her book about transracial adoption reflected her own feelings as someone adopted from South Korea into a white family. Her sister, Ashton Stoddard, the librarian at Ranson Elementary School in Jefferson County, West Virginia, who is a regular conference attendee, encouraged her sister, who just completed her first year of teaching, to attend. 

Bittle’s experience was just one of many revealing the truth of this year’s conference title: “A 40-Year Love Story: Books, Students, & the Magic In-Between.”

An extraordinary array of events

The conference’s three days of in-person sessions anchored a whirlwind of activity, featuring presentations and breakout sessions from some of the nation’s best authors and illustrators during the day, and community events celebrating reading in the evening and the weekend. 

Children’s Literature Conference Co-Founder and Director and Professor of Curriculum and Instruction Karen Huff, Ed.D., said hundreds of children and families turned out for the Reading Rocks Winchester event at John Handley High School on June 24, which included authors and illustrators Ben Clanton, Grammy-winner Lucky Diaz, Gordon C. James, Loren Long, Dan Santat, and Colleen AF Venable, most of whom presented at this year’s conference; free books; ice cream; face painting; games; favorite storybook characters, and more. 

The following day, James read to and illustrated alongside children from Fremont Street Nursery at the installation of a Little Free Library and the unveiling of the historic marker, “More Than a Barbershop,” at the historic Ball Barbershop on South Kent Street in Winchester. Each child also received one of the books he illustrated. “They’re little,” Dr. Huff said of the children, “but I think they’ll remember that.” 

Just a few hours later, Huff received heartfelt thanks from generations of educators for her decades of dedication and surprise appearances from family and friends at a reception in Hazel-Pruitt Armory that also saw the announcement of the Dr. Karen Huff Legacy Endowment for Children’s Literacy, which will provide stable, long-term support for the conference. Several conference presenters also attended the reception, including Ho, James, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Peter Brown, and Deborah Heiligman. 

Then, moments after the reception wrapped up, another event began within the HPA’s Collaboratory: an appearance and book signing from Brown, author of “The Wild Robot,” along with a showing of the animated film inspired by the book. Brown was also a presenter at this year’s conference. More than 100 children attended with family and friends, and each child received a free “Hornets Love to Read” T-shirt. 

Shenandoah’s conference was also an integral part of The Great Big Book Party held on June 27, at Eva Walker Park in Warrenton, Virginia. It included appearances by CLC presenters/author-illustrators David Catrow and Eliza Kinkz, and author Sam Wedelich, as well as Hawaiian shaved ice, Paws for Reading dogs, balloon sculptures, and face painting. At least 300 people attended, despite the prediction of rain, Huff said. 

Thousands of children reached

The conference’s magic reached further than the hundreds of children, families and educators who attended the late June events. In late April, the CLC hosted approximately 1,200 local elementary school students over the course of a two-day Rally for Reading in the Ohrstrom-Bryant Theatre on Shenandoah’s main campus. The events featured authors Kate DiCamillo and Katherine Applegate and children’s librarian/author John Schumacher, aka Mr. Schu. 

The events marked the start of the conference’s “year,” so to speak, with the authors also participating in virtual author visits with classrooms across the country. Other authors and illustrators took part in these visits, as well as virtual happy hours where they could just chat with educators, through early June. Virtual presenters included David Shannon, Minh Lê, 2026 Caldecott Medalist Cátia Chien, Mary Pope Osborne, Vera Brosgol, John Patrick Green, LeUyen Pham, Colby Sharp, Mychal Threets, and Adam Gidwitz. 

And then, following the in-person conference days, student cohorts and faculty from Shenandoah’s Master of Science in Literacy Education/Professional Studies Certificate in Reading programs (which also require students to attend the conference), headed to Camp Read A Lot in Woodbridge, Virginia, on Monday, July 6, to spend two weeks with children in need of reading assistance. A second Camp Read A Lot begins in Leesburg, Virginia, immediately after the conclusion of the Woodbridge camp. The children served by the camps have so much fun in the summer camp-style atmosphere, they don’t even realize they’re being tutored, Huff said. The children get to “shop” for free books each day, and teachers also get to engage with the children’s caregivers twice a day to provide them with progress updates. Hearing “something positive every single day adds up,” Huff said. 

Some children who seem uninvested on day one of camp really care about the books they pick to take home by the final day, Huff said. “[It’s] so fun to see the students change from the beginning to the end.” 

The support that makes all the difference

The Claude Moore Charitable Foundation provides funds for Camp Read A Lot and other reading initiatives through Shenandoah University’s Claude Moore Center for Literacy. The foundation granted $92,000 to Shenandoah this year. The funding is providing more than 5,000 books to students this year, and helping to fund the Children’s Literature Conference and Master of Science in Literacy Education/Professional Studies Certificate in Reading programs, as well. The foundation has supported Shenandoah’s reading-related programs for 18 years. 

For the second year running, Camp Read A Lot is receiving $3,000 in funding from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF), through the CMCL. The center also received a $10,000 Family Literacy Grant from the DGLF to continue its “Let’s Read Together” initiative that directly benefits Spanish-speaking English Language Learner students and their parents by equipping parents with a proven dialogic reading method and providing engaging workshops to significantly improve the children’s English literacy skills.

In the future, Huff said she hopes the CLC can host even more community events, considering the success of those offered in the past, and most particularly this year’s. It’ll be an opportunity to make more magic, for year 41.