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A celebration of the Joan K. Blaska Collection of Children's Literature

On Nov. 6, 2002 on the third floor in the corner of the Miller Center that houses the juvenile collection, a celebration was held in recognition of Joan K. Blaska.

Blaska’s donated collection of children’s literature consists of picture books with characters who have disabilities or illnesses, written for children from preschool through third grade.

The Joan K. Blaska Collection of Children’s Literature contains approximately 300 books, with new books added each year. These books give children the opportunity to begin to understand the diversity of human ability just as they develop awareness of cultural diversity from other books.

Blaska retired in 2001 from the Department of Child and Family Studies in the College of Education at St. Cloud State University.

She believes that if children begin the process of learning about disability and illness during their early years, they will build a stronger understanding of disabilities. When children with this early learning meet someone with a disability or illness, their prior knowledge and understanding will help them to do a better job relating to the person rather than to the person’s disability or illness.

Blaska learned when she was supervising student teachers at SCSU that the CFS department did a good job of using multicultural books in the curriculum but books about children with disabilities were non-existent. So she set out to discover what kinds of materials were available in this area and how teachers could use them in their classrooms.

She spent her sabbatical in 1992 researching and writing a book on how to use children’s literature to teach about
disability and illness.

The second edition of Blaska’s book, “Using Children’s Literature to Learn about Disabilities and Illness” is due to be released by Educators International Press in 2003.

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