This weekend Buffalo State College will host a graduate student conference on Children’s Literature and Social Justice.

Choctaw storyteller and author Tim Tingle (left), winner of the 2007 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for books that promote social justice and peace, will be the guest author. Tingle has published six books, from his award-winning debut, Walking the Choctaw Road, to his latest title, When Turtle Grew Feathers. Tingle has performed at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Roni Natov (right), a professor of English at Brooklyn College, CUNY, will be the academic guest speaker for the conference. Natov has published widely in the field of children’s literature, and is co-founder of The Lion and the Unicorn, a journal devoted to scholarly discussions of children’s literature. She is currently working on a book entitled Out of the Shadows, Children in Struggle.

Other events on the conference program include visits to local sites connected with the Underground Railroad, and a trip to Niagara Falls.

The Child and the Book Conference runs from Friday to Sunday at Buff State’s Bulger Communications Center. For more information, including a full schedule, click here.