This panel will explore the role of literature and the media in helping children address and overcome prejudice and become sensitive and critical consumers of information.

Heather Camlot's children's book The Prisoner and the Writer, illustrated by Sophie Casson, addresses issues of prejudice and misinformation through an examination of the Dreyfus Affair. Camlot is an award-winning children’s author, journalist, editor and translator. She holds a BA in communication studies from Concordia University and an MA in journalism from New York University.

Fashina Aladé is Assistant Professor of Advertising & Public Relations at Michigan State University with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. Her work lies at the intersection of media effects, developmental psychology, and early childhood education, with a focus on young children’s comprehension of media.

Jonathan Zimmerman (moderator) is the Berkowitz Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. A former teacher of social studies in public schools, he focuses on the ways in which political and social movements shape children's education. He is the author of, among other titles, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (rev. ed., 2022); Free Speech: and Why You Should Give a Damn (2021); and Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know (2020). Zimmerman is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, and other publications.

Image: Cover, Heather Camlot and Sophie Casson, The Prisoner and the Writer (Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2022).