Critical Handbook of Children''s Literature, A

About Cynthia Miller CoffelJacquelin SmithRebecca Lukens

Rebecca J. Lukens graduated with honors from Concordia College in Minnesota earned an M.A. from Syracuse University and next worked on the editorial staff of a children's encyclopedia in New York.  After a year on the faculty of St. Olaf College followed by her marriage she taught at New York State College Albany and later at Ohio University Chillicothe. After publication of a few children's stories Miami University Department of English hired Lukens to teach Children's Literaturenot Kiddy Litas well as technical and expository writing.   The first edition of A Critical Handbook of Children's Literature was published by Scott Foresman in 1976 and A Critical Handbook of Literature for Young Adults by Harper Collins in 1994.  Lukens also co-edited a literature anthology Woman: An Affirmation published by D. C. Heath in 1979.  Her latest publication It's Been Great is a memoir dedicated to my children and theirs.   Lukens's retirement teaching has been with Miami University's Institute for Learning in Retirement; her favorite class she called Laughter for Health and Sanity.   Jacquelin J. Smith is a career educator whose experience spans grades 28 through pre-service teaching. Childrens Literature has been a passion throughout her career from literacy learning to connections across the curriculum. She has shared many cross-curricular teaching and learning strategies for science social studies and math with childrens books at numerous professional conferences and in publications with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. A lifelong learner and Childrens Literature instructor at the University of Northern Iowa her studies continually confirm both her appreciation for and belief in the power of critically examining childrens literature.   Cynthia Miller Coffel is the author of Thinking Themselves Free: Research on the Literacy of Teen Mothers. Her research in children's and young adult literature has appeared in journals such as The ALAN Review Reader and QSE. Her work won the Jeffrey E. Smith award for nonfiction from The Missouri Review in 2007 and her literary essays have twice been listed among the notable essays of the year in The Best American Essays series. Her PhD in literacy education is from the University of Iowa.