Ebony Elizabeth Thomas receives the Children's Literature Association Edited Book Award

Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World (University Press of Mississippi, 2022) edited by Associate Professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Sarah Park Dahlen, associate professor in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, School of Information Sciences, has received the Children's Literature Association (ChLA) Edited Book Award. The annual award recognizes the contributions of an outstanding edited collection of essays to children's literature history, scholarship, and criticism. According to ChLA, eligible titles must "make a distinct or significant contribution to our understanding of children's literature from a literary, cultural, historical, or theoretical perspective."

In Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World, Thomas, Dahlen, and 17 other scholars examine how the original Wizarding World in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series depicts diverse identities, social subjectivities, and communities. The collection also received a starred review from School Library Journal and was included in the Professional Reading section of School Library Journal's "34 Standout Titles.”