Rudine Sims Bishop

Rudine Sims Bishop, professor emerita at Ohio State University, has been referred to as the “mother of” multicultural children's literature for her groundbreaking American children’s literature research.[1]

Rudine Sims Bishop
Born (1937-07-31) July 31, 1937
NationalityAmerican
EducationWest Chester State Teachers College, University of Pennsylvania, Wayne State University
OccupationEducator
Spouse(s)James J. Bishop

Biography

Bishop was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, about a hundred miles northwest of Philadelphia. The public schools in her community were not racially segregated, though Bishop noted that professional opportunities were limited for African Americans at the time.[1] One area open to her was teaching.

After graduating from Pottsville High School,[2] Bishop attended West Chester State Teachers College (now West Chester University of Pennsylvania).[3] She completed her master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania.[4] Later she obtained her doctorate from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

She taught elementary school for a few years. At the college and university level, Bishop taught reading, curriculum development, and children’s literature at Morgan State College in Baltimore, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the State University of New York at Buffalo and The Ohio State University, where Bishop specialized in children’s literature, particularly African American children’s literature.[4][5][6]

Bishop has credited a few influences on her evolving work around multicultural children’s literature. The first influence came when one of her freshman college roommates, Patricia Grasty Gaines, introduced her to Marguerite de Angeli’s Bright April (1946), the first children’s book Bishop read with characters that looked and experienced community life similar to her own.[7] The next memorable occasion happened while Bishop was a graduate student at Wayne State University. Here she first encountered a large collection of African American children’s literature.[7] The Detroit Free Press sponsored an annual book fair. In November 1969, Dr. Donald Bissett of Wayne State’s Children’s Literature Center, coordinated a display of 40+ children’s books featuring African Americans at the fair. The display was called “The Darker Brother Collection” after the Langston Hughes poem, I, Too.[8] Bishop later recalled, “…it was the first time I had seen so many children’s books about African Americans together in one place. I remember wanting to read them all, see what they were like, what sorts of topics and themes were dealt with, and how African Americans were represented. That was one of the threads that eventually led to my interest in multicultural literature…”[4] The final influence came from Bishop’s work as a graduate research assistant to Wayne State professor Ken Goodman, who was also her advisor. Bishop and others assisted Goodman in his reading miscue analysis research. The analysis examines when an observed response in the reading process does not match the expected response.[4] The research recorded children in states as diverse as Mississippi, Maine and Hawaii reading two different stories, including one identified as “culturally relevant”. Bishop recalled, “…[w]hen we examined the miscues and the retellings, we observed that when there were differences between the kids’ performances on the two stories, they did better on the ‘culturally relevant’ stories. So one conclusion is that what children read makes a difference.”[4]

Bishop’s 1982 book, Shadow and Substance, established a framework for analyzing children’s literature about people of color, and remains a standard in the field.[1] Bishop examined 150 contemporary fiction books that included African American characters. She categorized the books into three distinct areas: Social Conscience, Melting Pot, and Culturally Conscious books.

Selected Bibliography

Bishop has written a number of books and articles related to American and multicultural children’s literature including:

AuthorTitleYearPublisherISBNNotes
Sims, RudineA psycholinguistic description of miscues generated by selected young readers during the oral reading of text material in Black dialect and standard English1972Ed. D. Wayne State UniversityOCLC Number: 9291163
Sims, RudineShadow and substance: Afro-American experience in contemporary children's fiction1982National Council of Teachers of English: Urbana, IL9780814143766Survey of books by and about African Americans published between 1965 and 1979
Sims, RudineStrong Black Girls: A Ten Year Old Responds to Fiction about Afro-Americans (article)1983Journal of Research and Development in Educationvol. 16, no. 3 pp. 21–28, Spring 1983
Bishop, Rudine SimsMirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors (article)1990Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroomvol. 6, no. 3, Summer issue
Bishop, Rudine SimsPresenting Walter Dean Myers1990Twayne Publishers: Boston, MA9780805782141
Bishop, Rudine SimsKaleidoscope: a multicultural booklist for grades K-8: second edition, covering books published from 1993-951997National Council of Teachers of English: Urbana, IL9780814125434
Compiled by Rudine Sims Bishop, Illustrations by Lois Mailou JonesWonders: the best children's poems of Effie Lee Newsome1999Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press: Honesdale, PA9781563978258
Bishop, Rudine SimsFree within ourselves: the development of African American children's literature2007Greenwood Press: Westport, CT9780313340932
Bishop, Rudine SimsBishop Daniel A. Payne: great black leader2009Just Us Books: East Orange, NJ9781933491158

Other Contributions

Bishop has been involved with the Coretta Scott King Book Awards program for several years. In 2014 and 2015 she was a jury member.[9][10] In 2016 and 2017, Bishop chaired the jury committee.[11][12]

Bishop was a member of the 1999 Caldecott Medal Selection Committee[13] as well as a member of 1992 Newbery Medal Selection Committee.[14]

Bishop was also one of three members on the Boston Globe Horn Book Award Committee for 1987-1988 and 2003-2004.[4]

Awards

In 2017, Bishop received the Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement award.[15][5]

Bishop was inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame in 2001.[16]

Students

Former students of Bishop include:

  • Dr. Jonda C. McNair, the Charlotte S. Huck Endowed Professor of Children’s Literature at The Ohio State University.[7]
  • Dr. Cynthia Tyson, Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University.[1]

References
  1. "Rudine Sims Bishop: 'Mother' of multicultural children's literature". Ohio State Education and Human Ecology. 5 September 2019. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  2. "Pottsville High School Yearbook, 1955, p. 41". www.ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  3. "West Chester University Yearbook, 1959, p. 166". www.ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  4. Oxley, Peggy (2006). "PROFILE: Rudine Sims Bishop: Making a Difference through Literature". Language Arts. 83 (6): 552–557. ISSN 0360-9170. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  5. Bishop, Rudine Sims (2009). "Profiles and Perspectives: Surveying the Hopescape". Language Arts. 86 (3): 212–217. ISSN 0360-9170. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  6. "University to honor Bishop's service". Ohio State Education and Human Ecology. 11 December 2013. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  7. Bishop, Rudine Sims. "2017 CSK–Virginia Hamilton Award Acceptance by Rudine Sims Bishop". The Horn Book. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  8. Halas, Susan (2 Nov 1969). "Through the Doors of the Book Fair, A Bonanza of Books and Authors". Detroit Free Press at Newspapers.com. p. 30. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  9. Patton, Kim; Adlawan, Kim; Bigelow, Therese; Dawson, Rose; Sherif, Sue; Bishop, Rudine Sims; Huggins, Sujin (2014). "2014 CSK Awards Discussion Guide". Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  10. Patton, Kim; Dawson, Rose; Dorr, Christina; Newell, Ruth; Bishop, Rudine Sims; Spears, Barbara; Walke, Martha (2015). "2015 CSK Awards Discussion Guide". Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  11. Bishop, Rudine Sims; Bloom, Sam; Dorr, Christina; Newell, Ruth; Roy, April; Spears, Barbara; Thompson, Ida W. (2016). "2016 CSK Awards Discussion Guide". Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  12. Bishop, Rudine Sims; Armstrong, Kacie; Bloom, Sam; Marks, Erica; Parravano, Martha; Roy, April; Thompson, Ida W. (2017). "2017 CSK Awards Discussion Guide". Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  13. "Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938-Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). 30 November 1999. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  14. "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922-Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). 30 November 1999. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
  15. "Rudine Sims Bishop 2017 recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement". ALA.org News and Press Center. 23 January 2017. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  16. "Rudine Sims Bishop (Inducted 2001) | Reading Hall of Fame". www.readinghalloffame.org. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
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