About the Author

Barbara Kiefer

Barbara Kiefer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University where she teaches courses in Reading and Children’s Literature. Originally trained in art education, she taught grades 1-5 in several regions of the U.S. and in overseas schools. She has served as chair of the Elementary Section Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English and as a member of the NCTE Executive Board and was a member of the 1988 Caldecott Award Committee of the American Library Association. She has also served as chair of the NCTE/CLA notable Trade Books in the Language Arts committee and the Children’s Book Council/International Reading association Joint Committee. She has published articles and book chapters about reading and children’s literature. She is the author of The Potential of Picturebooks: From Visual Literacy to Aesthetic Understanding, the co-author of An Integrated Language Perspective in the Elementary School with Christine Pappas and Linda Levstik and the sixth and seventh editions of Huck et al.: Children's Literature in the Elementary School. 

Cynthia Tyson

Cynthia A. Tyson, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University, where she teaches courses in Multicultural and Equity Studies in Education, Early Childhood Social Studies, and Multicultural Children’s Literature. Her research interests include inquiry into the social, historical, cultural, and global intersections of teaching, learning, and educational research. Her teaching, research, and service commitments are deeply rooted in these concepts as interrelated, mutually reinforcing, and fundamental to the study of multiculturalism and teaching for social justice. She has presented numerous research papers at national and international meetings and conferences. She has published articles in Educational Researcher, Theory and Research in Social Education, International Journal of Qualitative Research in Education, Journal of Literacy Research, and other books and journals. She is also the co-author of two books, Handbook of Social Studies Research and the American Educational Research Association volume, Studying Diversity in Teacher Education. She has won several awards over her career, including The Social Science Educators’ Young Scholar Award, The Ohio State University Diversity Enhancement Award, and The American Educational Research Association’s Mid-Career Award for her contributions to Teaching and Teacher Education. She has worked in a consulting capacity with universities, school districts, and learning communities across the United States, the United Kingdom, Mali, Ghana, and South Africa.