Butler Lecture

The Butler Lecture is generously supported by the Butler Family Foundation. The Butler Lectures showcase award-winning creators of books for young people and academic experts who speak on issues related to children's literature and the joy of reading and lifelong learning.

About the Butler Center

Established in 2009, the Butler Children’s Literature Center at Dominican University is administered by the School of Information Studies and is supported by the Butler Family Foundation. The Center houses an examination collection of newly published books for children and teens, and two historical collections of note: The Effie Lee Morris Collection of African American Books and the Ellin Greene Storytelling Collection.

Past Lectures

  • 2024: Kyle Lukoff presented "The Right to Be Confused" on March 13, 2024 View Recording (available for 30 days)
  • 2023: Pablo Cartaya presented the 11th Annual Butler Lecture on March 23, 2023
  • 2022: Aisha Saeed presented "Books to See Us Through" on March 31, 2022
  • 2021: Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Renée Watson presented “Fantastic Black Girlhoods: A Conversation with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Renée Watson” on March 29, 2021
  • 2020: Bryan Collier presented "You Can Never Outgrow a Picture Book" on March 4, 2020
  • 2019: Carmen Agra Deedy presented "The End of the Story" on March 20, 2019
  • 2018: Andrea Davis Pinkney presented "Behold the Road! The Writer’s Passage, the Reader’s Journey" on March 14, 2018
  • 2017: Holly Black presented "Why Magic?" on March 16, 2017
  • 2016: Christian Robinson presented "You Are Here: Finding Yourself in Picture Books" on March 16, 2016
  • 2015:  LeUyen Pham presented "Wandering Wonderland: An Immigrant's Story Told Through Books" on March 5, 2015
  • 2014: Jane Yolen presented "Folklore vs. Fakelore: The Truth about Folk, Fairy, and Fantasy Stories" on February  26, 2014
  • 2013: Inaugural Butler Lecturer Ed Young presented "The House Baba Built" on February 22, 2013