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CHICAGO - The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) has awarded the 2022 Louise Seaman Bechtel Fellowship to J. Joseph Prince.

The Bechtel Fellowship is designed to allow qualified children’s librarians to spend up to four weeks reading and studying at the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, a part of the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida, Gainesville. The Baldwin Library contains a special collection of 120,000 volumes of children’s literature published mostly before 1950. The fellowship is endowed in memory of Louise Seaman Bechtel and Ruth M. Baldwin and provides a stipend of up to $7,500.

Joe Prince is the Curriculum & Outreach Educator at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH. He will pursue the historical presentation of grief and loss in children’s books, 1850-1950. The committee was impressed by the timeliness of research into presentation of grief and loss and the impact of those texts for children given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent losses in communities across the country and the world.

The committee was impressed with Mr. Prince’s plan to incorporate Social Emotional Learning frameworks to his research and his plan to use his research to inform curriculum going forward. “We are excited to see the results of Mr. Prince’s research; we are confident that he will be able to apply insights he gains as the result of his time with the Baldwin Collection to inform how future teachers and school librarians present and share titles with children dealing with grief and loss,” said Chair Rachel Fryd.

“I’m looking forward to working with Mr. Prince on this important project. The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature has hundreds of stories that explore loss in different ways, at different moments in time, and it will be fascinating to see how Mr. Prince’s research influences how we share stories about grief with contemporary children,” said Ramona Caponegro, curator, Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature.

ALSC, a division of the , is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the support and enhancement of library service to children. With a network of approximately 4,000 children’s and youth librarians, literature experts, publishers, and educational faculty, ALSC is committed to creating a better future for children through libraries. To learn more about ALSC, visit ALSC’s website at .

The year ALSC Professional Recognition and Scholarships Committee includes: Brooke Newberry, Co-Chair, La Crosse (Wisconsin) Public Library; Rachel Fryd, Co-Chair, Free Library of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania); Lourdes Montes, Charleston County (South Carolina) Public Library; Elizabeth Burns, New Jersey State Library; Kathleen Campana, Kent State (Ohio) University; Robin Howe, King County (Washington) Library System; Mary Schreiber, Cuyahoga (Ohio) Public Library; Elizabeth Saxton, Content Specialist - Overdrive, Cleveland (Ohio).