The Carle is pleased to welcome Dr. Jonda C. McNair as guest speaker for the 2023 Barbara Elleman Research Library (BERL) Lecture.

Dr. McNair’s lecture, The End Is Just the Beginning: Examining Endpapers in Picture Books, will address endpapers as an aspect of picture book design that is worthy of careful attention by readers, authors, illustrators, and scholars of children’s literature. Endpapers, which open and close a book, can be as simple as well-chosen tints of colored paper stock to set a mood or establish a palette. They can also be rich and complex, providing another surface for the illustrator to use in their storytelling.

The BERL Lecture is an annual event featuring the country’s top scholars, book collectors, researchers, editors, authors, and illustrators in children’s literature. Past BERL Lecture speakers include Patricia Lee Gauch (2011); Betsy Hearne (2012); Peter Sís (2013); Timothy Young (2014); Jerry Pinkney (2015); Grace Lin (2016); Steven Kellogg (2017); Anita Silvey (2018); Neal Porter (2019), and Wendell Minor (2022).