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Children’s writer Avi to speak
March 4 at UNC-Chapel Hill

CHAPEL HILL — He goes by Avi, a name his twin sister game him when they were 1.

The award-winning author of more than 35 books for children and young adults will give the free public lecture "My Name is Avi" at 10 a.m. March 4 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The program will be in the Hitchcock Multipurpose Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, off South Road near the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower.

The lecture will be the 2006 Susan Steinfirst Memorial Lecture in Children’s Literature, presented by the UNC School of Information and Library Science. After the presentation, Avi will sign his books, which will be available for purchase.

The writer is familiar to many grade-school students, his work having appeared routinely on school reading lists nationwide.

"I encountered Avi as an adult rather than as a young adult, and I regret having missed his work at that age," said Dr. Brian Sturm, an associate professor in the School of Information and Library Science and expert on children’s literature. "I find (Avi’s) writing addictive, passionate, adventuresome and involving," Sturm said. "He captures the essence of his characters’ lives, builds wonderfully sophisticated worlds in which to set them, and gives them authentic and exciting voices."

Avi won the 2003 Newbery Medal for his historical novel "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" (Hyperion Books for Children). The medal honors the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, presents the medal annually.

Two of Avi’s titles were named Newbery Honor Books: "Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel" and "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" (Jackson/Orchard; 1992 and 1991, respectively).

He also has received the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, from the newspaper and Horn Book Magazine, and honors in that competition; the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers’ Literature, presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

Born in 1937, Avi was a self-proclaimed poor student who wanted to prove that he could write. As a high school senior, he decided to pursue the practice in earnest. He began as a playwright, then started writing for children when he had a family of his own.

"Kids are wonderful readers," Avi said in an interview with Reading Rockets, a national program on how children learn to read. "They read very differently than adults do. They're fully engaged. They identify with the stories. They live through a story in a very different way."

The Steinfirst Lecture honors the memory of Susan Steinfirst, a professor of children and young adult literature at the university from 1976 to 1996. She dedicated her life to promoting children’s literature by teaching future librarians and publishing scholarly works in the field.

Parking for the event will be available on campus. Visit the university’s visitor center Web site, www.unc.edu/visitors/, for directions and a map. For more information, call (919) 843-8337.

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Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/visiting/avi.jpg

School of Information and Library Science contact: Wanda Monroe, (919) 843-8337, wmonroe@unc.edu.

News Services contacts: Print, L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589; broadcast, Karen Moon, (919) 962-8589