KT Horning Directorship for the Cooperative Children’s Book Center
The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) serves as a resource to Wisconsin schools, teachers, and librarians. The CCBC works to increase diversity in children’s and young adult literature, provides intellectual freedom services to schools and public libraries, and utilizes outreach to teachers, librarians, and students across Wisconsin to recommend books.
Current director, KT Horning, has provided over 40 years of service to the CCBC and will be retiring in July after serving as the CCBC director for 20 years. By highlighting diversity in children’s literature, the CCBC and KT have sparked an increase in the number of young people who see themselves in a children’s book. KT oversaw creation of a database so people can find reliable information about diversity in children’s literature and books that resonate with their identities. KT has served as a trusted collaborator with teachers, librarians, and publishing houses to create meaningful literature for children and young adults.
New director, Tessa Schmidt, will bring her experience as a librarian, teacher, and educational leader to CCBC. Tessa hopes to continue diversifying CCBC's literature, increase its research and outreach efforts, and serve as a resource for librarians and educators.
In this time of transition and at a critical moment for ensuring intellectual freedom, we are looking forward to Tessa’s strong leadership and extensive experience. As a way to honor KT's dedication to the CCBC and ensure Tessa has the resources she needs to advance CCBC priorities, we are pursuing a collective giving opportunity to establish the KT Horning Directorship for the Cooperative Children's Book Center.
The Milkey Family Foundation has provided a lead gift to establish the endowed directorship, and as part of their support have agreed to match any gift at any level up to $500,000 that is directed to the fund. We hope you will consider joining this effort in honoring KT and ensuring the future success of the CCBC for decades to come!