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, and Jerry Pinkney have participated. In 2019, the Information School was honored to host Jason Reynolds for the Shaw Lecture, shortly before the Library of Congress named him the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.
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.
2020 Lecturer
Brian Selznick
An author and illustrator of many award-winning books for children, as well as an accomplished puppeteer, Brian Selznick graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1988. Selznick’s work includes The Invention of Hugo Cabret, winner of the Caldecott medal and the basis for the Oscar-winning movie Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese. He also wrote and illustrated Wonderstruck, which was adapted for film by Todd Haynes. Other illustrated works include: The Marvels, The Doll People Trilogy by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin, The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley (winner of a Caldecott Honor) and Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan.
Selznick’s most recent book, his first written for an adult audience, is Live Oak, With Moss, based on 12 poems by Walt Whitman.
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
 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 |