Mo Willems to be featured at the AASL Awards Luncheon
Contact: Kathy Agarwal
Phone: 312-280-4381
Fax: 312-664-7459
For Immediate Release
March 17, 2005
Mo Willems to be featured at the AASL Awards Luncheon
CHICAGO - The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) is pleased to welcome the author and illustrator Mo Willems as the guest speaker at the AASL Awards Luncheon. Willems is a six-time Emmy-award winner and two-time Caldecott honor recipient whose books have been on the New York Times bestseller list. The luncheon will be held at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago, June 24-29, 2005.
Willems received his first Caldecott Honor for the 2003 book “Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus,” a hilarious look at a child's potential for mischief. His second book to be honored with a Caldecott is “Knuffle Bunny, a Cautionary Tale,” which explores the drama of losing a toy. Willems also is the NAPPA Gold medallist for “Time to Pee.” His newest book is “The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog!” Willems spent nine years as a script-writer and animator for Sesame Street and had his independent shorts appear on MTV, HBO, IFC, The Tournee of Animation, and Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation. Willems is the creator of Cartoon Network's “Sheep in the Big City,” Nickelodeon's “The Off-Beats,” and the Suzie Kabloozie shorts on “Sesame Street,” for which he garnered several ASIFA-East Awards.
Mo Willems is appearing courtesy of Hyperion Press.
The AASL Awards Luncheon will convene on Monday, June 27, 2005, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. It will celebrate the accomplishments of AASL members with the presentation of the 2005 AASL Awards. One of the awards presented will be the prestigious AASL National School Library Media Program of the Year Award (NSLMPY), sponsored by Follett Library Resources. Immediately following the Awards Luncheon is the AASL President's Reception, providing the opportunity to meet and greet the AASL president, board members and other AASL leaders.
To register for the luncheon, visit the ALA conference Web site at
www.ala.org/annual. Tickets for the event are $49. For more details about other AASL programs and meetings at this year’s ALA Annual conference, go to
www.ala.org/aasl/annual, or you can contact the AASL office at 800-545-2433 ext. 4382.
The American Association of School Librarians (
www.ala.org/aasl), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), promotes the improvement and extension of library media services in elementary and secondary schools as a means of strengthening the total education program. Its mission is to advocate excellence, facilitate change and develop leaders in the school library media field.
