The exhibit, as presented in the library, included not only works by all 27 Hans Christian Andersen Award nominees, but also the creations of winners of other prestigious awards such as the Caldecott Medal and the Bologna Ragazzi Award. Additionally, some of the dossiers prepared for members of the Andersen Medal jury — items owned by only a few libraries in the world — were also on display. Beyond the books, the exhibit also featured a large-screen movie of illustrations by the Andersen nominees, courtesy of NU Academic Technologies, and a computer at which visitors could view the videos and other information to be found on this website.

Though the physical exhibit has ended, much of its content will remain accessible here on the website indefinitely. Among the included features of the site:

• Images of each item, along with the original label text, as well as photos of the exhibit itself and scanned images of the 2004 Hans Christian Andersen Award nominee dossier covers
• Biographical information about the 2004 Hans Christian Andersen Award nominees, taken from the informational dossiers submitted to the jury by their respective countries
• Information about the Hans Christian Andersen Award, including the members of the 2004 Jury
• The international children's literature lecture, "Of Date Palms, the Kalahari, and Love and Death in Quebec: Great Children’s Books You’ve Never Seen," given on two occasions during the exhibit by HCA Jury President Jeffrey Garrett (requires RealPlayer and high-speed internet connection)
• Interviews with renowned illustrators Maurice Sendak and Quentin Blake, both past winners of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, from the British film series Writers Talk: Ideas of Our Time
• Links to further information about the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the illustrators featured in the exhibit, other awards for children's literature, and children's literature more generally

The exhibit principally draws on the library's Curriculum Collection (Level Five, North Tower). This 17,000-volume collection principally serves the School of Education and Social Policy and the School of Communication, and includes over 1800 titles in non-English languages.

The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies (Level Five, East Tower), in addition to providing a number of books for the first-floor exhibit, showed a complementary exhibit in 5-East, taken from its own children's literature collection. Photos of this part of the exhibit can also be viewed on the "Exhibit Tour" section of the site.

Thanks to all who came and enjoyed the exhibit during its run — we hope you like its online incarnation just as much!

Number of Visitors (since August 27, 2004):

Note: This site is no longer being updated, though it will remain online indefinitely for archival purposes. If you have questions about any of the site's content, please send an email to curriculum@northwestern.edu.