Global Reads Webinar: Author Nadine Pinede on her YA Novel When the Mapou Sings

K-12 educators, join us for a conversation with Nadine Pinede, author of the 2025 Honor Book, When the Mapou Sings. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss the book with the author and consider classroom applications.

Infused with magical realism, this story blends first love and political intrigue with a quest for justice and self-determination in 1930s Haiti.

Sixteen-year-old Lucille hopes to one day open a school alongside her best friend where girls just like them can learn what it means to be Haitian: to learn from the mountains and the forests around them, to carve, to sew, to draw, and to sing the songs of the Mapou, the sacred trees that dot the island nation. But when her friend vanishes without a trace, a dream—a gift from the Mapou—tells Lucille to go to her village’s section chief, the local face of law, order, and corruption, which puts her life and her family’s at risk.

Forced to flee her home, Lucille takes a servant post with a wealthy Haitian woman from society’s elite in Port-au-Prince. Despite a warning to avoid him, she falls in love with her employer’s son. But when their relationship is found out, she must leave again—this time banished to another city to work for a visiting American writer and academic conducting fieldwork in Haiti. While Lucille’s new employer studies vodou and works on the novel that will become Their Eyes Were Watching God, Lucille risks losing everything she cares about—and any chance of seeing her best friend again—as she fights to save their lives and secure her future in this novel in verse with the racing heart of a thriller.

For more information, please email Katrina Dillon at kedillon@arizona.edu.

2026 Global Reads Webinar Series

Once a month throughout the Spring, the World Area Book Awards (Américas Award, Children’s Africana Book Award, Freeman Book Award, Middle East Book Award, and South Asia Book Award) sponsor a free 60-minute webinar on a book recognized by one of the awards to facilitate a discussion with the author on how to incorporate the book into the classroom. We encourage educators to read the books with your colleagues, students, and community, and then join us to hear more from the author.

Future 2026 webinars (February-June 2026) will be updated soon .

Américas Award Sponsors

The awards are administered by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) and coordinated by both Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the University of Arizona’s Center for Latin American Studies. Generous support is also provided by Florida International University, Michigan State University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, University of Florida, University of Michigan, University of New Mexico, University of Texas at Austin, University of Utah, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Vanderbilt University.

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Children’s and Young Adult Literature Book Fellows

$1000 stipends for MPS teachers and librarians available

To support more diverse books in classrooms and libraries, and the integration of diverse books into the curriculum, the 51���� Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) and the 51���� Center for International Education’s Institute of World Affairs (IWA) will award $1000 summer stipends to seven Milwaukee Public Schools teachers and librarians (any related subject area, any level) to spend one week (M-F, flexible) exploring children’s and young adult book collections in the 51���� Libraries Curriculum Collection and ways to connect the books to their classrooms/libraries.

Selected Fellows will be responsible for creation of a shareable deliverable that fits their own teaching/library needs. to see examples of past materials – there are many ways to meet this requirement.

All applications are welcome, but priority will be given to applicants who have not previously received this fellowship.

Book Collections:

The Américas Award commends U.S. published children’s and young adult books that portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinx in the United States, and provides teachers with recommendations for classroom use. Learn more about the Américas Award .

Outstanding books for children and youth that celebrate the Latino cultural experience written or illustrated by book creators of Latinx heritage. Learn more about the Pura Belpré Award .

Initiated in 2021, the collection highlights experiences from outside of the United States through literature, both in original languages and in translation. Learn more about the ICYAL here.

To apply: Please submit an online application, below.

Application deadline: March 31, 2025. Selected recipients will be notified the week of April 21.

Questions? Contact Monica VanBladel, CLACS (vanblade@uwm.edu / 414-251-5216)

CLACS and IWA are funded by the U.S. Department of Education as Title VI National Resource Centers for Area and International Studies.

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in recognition of Human Rights Day

Monday, December 11, 2023

11am Central (via Zoom) – REGISTER

In response to the waves of refugees from Africa and the Middle East arriving to the Italian island,Lampedusa, the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), led by Deborah Soria, launched the project “, from the world to Lampedusa and back” in 2012. The project involved creating the first library on Lampedusa to be used by local and immigrant children and annual Silent Book lists and exhibits that travel the globe.

with

Deborah Soria
Biblioteca IBBY lampedusa

Sponsored by the International Children’s and Young Adult Literature Collection, 51���� Libraries, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with support from the Center for International Education and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

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Children’s and Young Adult Literature

Book Fellows

$1000 stipends for MPS teachers and librarians available

To support more diverse books in classrooms and libraries and integration of diverse books in the curriculum, the 51���� Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) and the 51���� Center for International Education (CIE) will award $1000 summer stipends to eight Milwaukee Public Schools teachers and librarians (any related subject area, any level) to spend one week (M-F, flexible) exploring children’s and young adult book collections in the 51���� Libraries Curriculum Collection and ways to connect the books to their classrooms/libraries.�� Selected Fellows will be responsible for creation of a shareable deliverable that fits their own teaching/library needs.

Book Collections:

The Américas Award commends U.S. published children’s and young adult books that portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinx in the United States, and provides teachers with recommendations for classroom use.���� Learn more about the Américas Award .

Outstanding books for children and youth that celebrate the Latino cultural experience written or illustrated by book creators of Latinx heritage.�� Learn more about the Pura Belpré Award .

Initiated in 2021, the collection��highlights experiences from outside of the United States through literature, both in original languages and in translation.�� Learn more about the ICYAL here.

To apply: ��Please submit online application, available here.�� Application deadline:�� April 1, 2024.

��Questions?�� Julie Kline, CLACS (jkline@uwm.edu / 414-229-5986)

CLACS and CIE are funded by the U.S. Department of Education as Title VI National Resource Centers for Area and International Studies.

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The Curriculum Collection will house two copies of each title, one in a research collection, and another available for lending.�� At present, represented languages include: Spanish, English, Turkish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Japanese, French, Korean and Greek, with forthcoming purchases including Arabic, Swahili, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, Burmese, Karen, Farsi, Chinese, Somali, Hmong, Swedish, German, Italian, Slovenian, Polish—25 languages and counting!�� Watch the ICYAL book collection����on this Google Map.����

To complement the collection, watch the space below for engaging in-person and virtual programming about international children’s books for teachers, students, librarians, parents, and the community.����

Upcoming Programs

2022

November 17 Collection Opening Celebration (5:30-7pm, 51���� Libraries)
Brazilian illustrator and writer, , winner of the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration with international children’s book specialist Junko Yokota

2023

March 2 (9am)
Virtual interview with Palestinian-Jordanian writer and publisher
Register

Cosponsors��
A collaboration of 51���� Libraries, the Center for International Education (CIE), and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.�� CIE and CLACS are designated Title VI National Resource Centers, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education.��

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