Spencer G. Shaw Endowed Lecture Series
Each year, the University of Washington Information School hosts a lecture established in Spencer Shaw's honor. This lecture takes place every October and features a leading figure in children's literature, who will speak to library students, teachers, librarians, alumni, community members, and more.
Famed authors and illustrators such as Tom Feelings, Maurice Sendak, Ashley Bryan, Margaret Mahy, Gary Soto, Laurence Yep, Theodore Taylor, Susan Cooper, Katherine Paterson, Milton Meltzer, Jerry Pinkney and Jason Reynolds have participated.
This lecture series is endowed to honor Spencer Shaw in perpetuity to continue to attract the best authors and illustrators in the field to lecture at the University of Washington.
2024 Lecturer
Christian Robinson
Christian Robinson is an illustrator, author, animator, and designer based in Oakland, California. He was born in Los Angeles and grew up in a small one-bedroom apartment with his brother, two cousins, aunt and grandmother. Drawing became a way to make space for himself and to create the kind of world he wanted to see. He studied animation at the California Institute of the Arts and would later work with the Sesame Workshop and Pixar Animation Studios before becoming an illustrator of books for children. The Christian Robinson for Target collection, released in August 2021, includes more than 70 items across home and apparel for kids and baby. His books include the #1 New York Times bestseller Last Stop on Market Street, written by Matt de la Peña, which was awarded a Caldecott Honor, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, and the Newbery Medal, and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Bench, written by Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex. His solo projects include Another, which was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2019, and the New York Times bestseller You Matter. His latest collaboration with Matt de la Peña, Milo Imagines The World, received six starred reviews and was a #1 Indie Bestseller and a New York Times bestseller. His collaboration with poet Amanda Gorman, Something, Someday, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. His illustrations for Nina: A Story of Nina Simone, written by Traci Todd, were recognized with a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor in 2022.
About Spencer G. Shaw (1916-2010)
Spencer Shaw picked his profession by the time he reached high school. Books and reading were important parts of his family life, and so was the Northwest Branch of the Hartford, Connecticut, Public Library.
“I was impressed with the work of the librarians and the services they rendered to the public,” he remembered. “Librarian Desier Moulton made it a welcomed place for the whole neighborhood. On Saturday mornings we gathered for the weekly story hours, where we were introduced to rich sources of folk literature from around the world. That’s what I admired.”
Shaw carried on that tradition during a nearly seven-decade career as a public librarian, educator and world-renowned expert on storytelling and library service to children. The American Library Association called him an “authentic and forthright spokesperson for children and youth librarians, contributing enormously in motivating and guiding the nation’s youth.”
Read more about Shaw in this 2005 profile.
Previous Spencer Shaw Lecturers
 Nic Stone |  Joseph Bruchac |  Yuyi Morales |  Brian Selznick |
 Jason Reynolds |  Sharon Draper |  Margarita Engle |  M.T. Anderson |
 Kadir Nelson |  Grace Lin |  Jack Gantos |  Christopher Paul Curtis |
 Pam Muños Ryan |  Jane Yolen |  Patricia C. McKissack |  Gerald McDermott |
 Walter Dean Myers |  Richard Peck |  Spencer Shaw |  Jerry Pinkney |
 Katherine Paterson |  Gary Soto |  Ashley Bryan |  Tom Feelings |
 Theodore Taylor |  Laurence Yep |  Susan Cooper |  Milton Meltzer |
 Maurice Sendak |  Margaret Mahy |