Call for Papers for a in person panel on 21st Century Latinx Children’s Literature and Media at the 2026 Annual MELUS Conference scheduled for Thursday, April 30 - Saturday, May 2, 2026.

According to the last three U.S. Census reports, the demographic of Latinx/Hispanic children has grown. Most recently, Latinx children account for about 1 in 4 of all children in the United States.

This panel on Latinx Children’s Literature and Media of the 21st century will shed light on the moves and changes in these texts. A panel about Latinx children’s media and literature responds to this year’s theme, "Beyond the Page: Storytelling Across Media and Borders in Precarious Times," by inviting papers on a variety of topics that not only take seriously the call to think “beyond the page” into different places or mediums, but also to provide clarity about and insight into the lives of Latinx children—a uniquely precarious demographic—in recent years and how authors, creators, and artists are imagining their worlds.

The panel will accept papers about a range of topics including, but not limited to:

• Latinx picture books
• Representations of Latinx children in mainstream media
• Bilingual literacy in children’s media
• Inclusive pedagogies for Latinx children
• Latinxs and (un)documentation
• The migrant child
• Multicultural and/or multiracial identities
• Latinidad and the panethnic identity
• Latinx folklore and fairy tales in US children’s books/media
• Circulation and remediations of Latinx children’s books
• Labor and the Latinx child
• Creating and resisting Latinx stereotypes
• Reading practices of children’s books

Please submit 250-300 word paper abstracts to Cecelia Alfonso-Stokes (cmstokes@wisc.edu) by Saturday, November 8. Acceptances will be alerted by Tuesday, November 11.

Information about conference here: https://melus.org/conferences/