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IBBY AWARDS



Frances E. Russell Award

The Frances E. Russell Award was established by the late Marjorie Russell in memory of her sister, Frances E. Russell, a longtime supporter of IBBY Canada. The $1,000 grant is intended to support IBBY Canada's mission "to initiate and encourage research in young people's literature in all its forms" and is given in support of research for a publishable work (a book or a paper) on Canadian children's literature.

Works of the following nature are eligible:

  1. Studies of individual authors and their work, especially if they are considered in their socio-historical context.
  2. Comparative studies of two or more authors, which illuminate their stylistic differences, or consider their social and historical approaches.
  3. Subject/Genre overviews, for example, Canadian fantasy or historical fiction, etc.
  4. Biographical studies of Canadian children's authors or illustrators.
  5. Studies of Canadian illustrators and their work.
  6. Related subjects including contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of Canadian children's literature.
  7. Research for children's fiction or non-fiction based on Canadian topics or subjects.
Five copies of each proposal, which should include a project synopsis and curriculum vitae, are required. The competition is open to Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. A jury, appointed by IBBY Canada, will select the successful applicant.

For more information, please contact:
Deirdre Baker
Frances E. Russell Award Chair
IBBY Canada c/o The Canadian Children's Book Centre
Toronto Public Library
Northern District Branch
Suite 101, 40 Orchard View Blvd.
Toronto, ON M4R 1B9
russell@ibby-canada.org

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Winner of the 2005 Frances Russell Award

Michelle Cobban receiving the award from Ron Jobe in Vancouver on October 14, 2006

The Frances Russell Award Committee is pleased to announce that Michelle Cobban, a student working towards her master's degree in children's literature at the University of British Columbia, is the winner of the 2005 Frances Russell Award. In her research project Lost Before Translation: French Canadian Children's Literature in Anglophone Canada, Cobban proposes to examine the trends in the translation of French Canadian children's literature into English from 1900 to the present. She will be considering both the choice of titles and methods of translation, asking questions about choice of content, translation of culture, and motive.

Winners of the Frances E. Russell Award
  • 2005 – Michelle Cobban
  • 2004 – Krista V. Johansen
  • 2003 – Joanna Emery
  • 2002 – Lynn Westerhout
  • 2001 – Françoise Lepage
  • 2000 – Sydell Waxman
  • 1999 – Mavis Reimer and Anne Rusnak
  • 1998 – No award given
  • 1997 – Carole Carpenter
  • 1996 – Suzanne Pouliot
  • 1995 – Jean Stringam
  • 1991 – Linda Granfield
  • 1990 – Judy Arter
  • 1989 – David Jenkinson
  • 1988 – Dr. Ronald A. Jobe
  • 1987 – Joan Weller
  • 1986 – Judith Saltman
  • 1985 – André Gagnon
  • 1984 – Jacques La Mothe
  • 1983 – Shirley Wright
  • 1982 – Dr. Catherine Ross/ Dr. Corrine Davies

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Frances Russell Extends to Australia

IN 1997 I WAS the happy recipient of the Frances E. Russell Award to undertake a study of "Folklore in Canadian Children's Literature in English." Among other things, this research showed very clearly that folklore has been an important discourse of identity in our children's literature, as is especially evident in the ways and extent to which it has been enlisted to construct a multicultural identity after the official adoption of this cultural policy in 1971. Indeed, the growth and specific directions of the evolution of English-language Canadian children's literature owe a great deal to the multicultural policy and the publishing initiatives it spawned.

I have presented my research results in several papers at different academic conferences, most recently (and with the assistance of a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council) at the meeting of the Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand in Wollongong, New South Wales on July 2. My paper there was entitled "Reconstructing Identity: Children's Literature and Multiculturalism."

It was possible for me to be at the ACSANZ meeting in part because I am now in Australia on a Harold B. White Fellowship at the National Library of Australia in Canberra – an amazing opportunity and situation for research. My project here is entitled "Constructing and Reconstructing Identity: Folklore in Australian Children's Literature." This study is a direct outgrowth of my research funded by the Frances E. Russell Award in that I am exploring folklore as a discourse of identity here, doing the Australian component of what has become an international comparative study. Last summer I was funded by York University to undertake a similar study in South Africa, entitled "A Discourse of Identity: Folklore in South African Children's Literature in English.

While I suppose I could possibly continue travelling the English-speaking world on this study, I think this extension to Australia will provide more than enough to prepare a comparative analysis of the role of folklore in reconstructing national identity following the adoption of a multicultural policy. This resulting book will illuminate the commonalities as well as differences in the significance attached to folklore and to children's literature as cultural discourses; the variations in the definitions, implementation and realization of multiculturalism; and the implications with respect to national and personal identity in contemporary multicultural societies.

Meanwhile, some of the Canadian results will appear early in 2001 on a web-site devoted to analyses of the children's books in English that consist of, include or are otherwise based on folklore. A monograph analysing the Canadian situation will appear shortly after, followed by works specifically on the relevant South African, and finally on the Australian, children's literature.

Who ever thought a Frances Russell Award could lead to so much. I am deeply grateful to IBBY Canada for providing the means to get this research snowball going!

Cheers from Down Under.

– Carole Carpenter
former Frances E. Russell Award Chair

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