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In honor of this year’s Summer Children's Literature Institute, we take a look back at the rich history of these events over the last 50 years, which gathered creators, scholars, and readers to mine the brilliant simplicity and compelling complexity of literature published for young people and read by so many others.

• Simmons History
• Traditions & Annual Events

In October of 1924, the first issue of The Horn Book magazine appeared. It began as a newsletter from the Bookshop for Boys and Girls, one of the first children’s book shops in the United States, established in 1916 by...

• 125th Anniversary
• Leadership

The 2024 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards Ceremony was held on November 24 at the Boston Public Library, where Cathryn Mercier, Professor and Graduate Program Director of Children's Literature, reflected on her role as a judge.

• 125th Anniversary
• Awards and Honors

Simmons faculty from various disciplines received awards in undergraduate and graduate teaching, research, service, and a commitment to DEI at the 2024 Faculty Awards.

• Awards and Honors
• Research

Brazilian illustrator Roger Mello visited the Simmons campus for a presentation in Professor Cathryn Mercier’s Picturebook class.

• Community Engagement

Rodney Fierce ’12MA, a Humanities Teacher at Sonoma Academy, shares what led him to study children’s literature, his work at the Academy, and his recent experience on the Horn Book Awards Committee.

• Awards and Honors
• Leadership

The Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards “recognize and reward excellence in literature for children and young adults.” As the School Library Journal reported, Professor and Graduate Program Director of Children’s Literature Cathryn Mercier chaired a group of judges who determined the 2024 awardees.

• Awards and Honors

Karen Boss ’95 ’13MA earned a double Bachelor’s degree in Communications and Sociology and returned to Simmons twenty years later for her Master’s in Children’s Literature. She is a senior editor at Charlesbridge, where she works on fiction and nonfiction picture books, and middle-grade and young adult works.

• Careers and Internships

Ariel Richardson ’09MA is the Senior Editor in Children’s at Chronicle Books, located in San Francisco. We caught up with Richardson about her role, her time at Simmons, and her recent award-winning picture book.

• Awards and Honors
• Careers and Internships

The Summer Institute in Children's Literature returned to Simmons University in July 2022. The Institute theme “Lost & Found” shaped reflections from authors, librarians, educators, publishers, and critics of children’s literature from across the country in this two-day gathering of inspiration and restoration.

• Careers and Internships