Naomi C. Chase Lecture in Children’s Literature
The Chase Lecture in Children’s Literature is an annual event hosted by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The lecture commemorates Professor Naomi C. Chase who taught at the University between 1950 and 1976 and was particularly interested in helping children develop as writers. Invited speakers are authors and illustrators recognized for making a significant contribution to the field of children’s literature.
Since 1980 when it was established, the event has drawn such award-winning authors such as Marguerite Henry, Myra Cohn Livingstone, Jane Yolen, and many others. Recent speakers included David Wiesner, Shannon Gibney, and Jacqueline Briggs Martin.
Chase Lecture Series 2026 Chase Lecture Series 2026
The 2026 Chase Lecture's topic will be Searching and Finding Home on the Page, featuring acclaimed author Kao Kalia Yang. Born a stateless child in a refugee camp, Yang’s Hmong family resettled in St. Paul, Minnesota when she was six years old.
Past lectures
The 2025 Chase Lecture featured Bao Phi
Refugeography: A Kid from Viet Nam Turns Invisibility Into Stories
March 25, 2025Bio
Bao Phi is the author of four children’s books. His first children’s book, A Different Pond, received six starred reviews and won multiple awards including a Caldecott Honor, an Ezra Jack Keats Honor, Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association award for best picture book, the Minnesota Book Award for picture books, and the Charlotte Zolotow Award for excellence in children’s book writing. His second children’s book, My Footprints, illustrated by Basia Tran, was called “a timeless and important book that deals with the fallout of bullying and the power of a child’s imagination to overcome with the strength and support of a loving family” by the School Library Journal.
In addition to his contributions to children's literature, Bao Phi is a spoken word artist, two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist. His poems and essays are widely published in numerous publications including Screaming Monkeys and Spoken Word Revolution Redux.
He has two collections of poems, Sông I Sing and Thousand Star Hotel, the latter of which was nominated for the Minnesota Book Award, named by NPR as one of the best books of 2017, and was chosen as 2017’s best poetry book of the year by San Francisco State’s Poetry Center.
The 2024 Chase Lecture featured Jacqueline Briggs Martin
The Wonder of it All
April 16, 2024Summary by the author
Rachel Carson wrote a book, The Sense of Wonder, about sharing the wonder of the natural world with children. In that book she said, "If a child is to keep alive [their] inborn sense of wonder, [they] need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with [them] the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." It has been one of my goals to share with children and all readers stories that remind us of the "joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in." Among other things, this talk explores my journey of finding such stories, shaping such stories within the constraints of non-fiction, and the pleasures of sharing those stories.
Bio
Jacqueline Briggs Martin is the author of twenty-one picture books for children including Snowflake Bentley, which received a Caldecott medal in 1999.
Chef Roy Choi and the Streetfood Remix (2017; co-written with June Jo Lee, illustrated by Man One) received a Siebert Honor and an Orbis Pictus Honor.
Begin with a Bee (2021; co-written with Phyllis Root and Liza Ketchum) illustrated by Claudia McGehee received a Riverby Award which recognizes exceptional non-fiction natural history books for young readers. Begin with a Bee was also named a Green Earth honor book.
Creekfinding: A True Story (2017; illustrated by Claudia McGehee) received the Green Earth Award for Environmental Writing for Children. Creekfinding also received a Riverby Award.
Martin has been on the faculty at Hamline University’s Low Residency MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and taught creative writing at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
The 2023 Chase Lecture featured Shannon Gibney
March 23, 2023The Power of Insisting on In-Between
Video replay
"The power of insisting on in-between" by Shannon Gibney
Bio
Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018) young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, her new novel, The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, explores themes of transracial adoption through speculative memoir (Dutton, 2023). Gibney’s other upcoming publications include the picture books Sam and the Incredible African and American Food Fight (University of Minnesota Press, 2023), and Where We Come From (Lerner, 2022; coauthored), and a YA anthology of stories by adoptees about adoptees, co-edited with Nicole Chung (HarperTeen, 2023).