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An international conference on children’s literature entitled From the Garden to the Trenches: Childhood, Culture and the First World War will take place May 10-12, 2012, at three locations: Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario; the Osborne Collection of the Toronto Public Library; and Trinity College at the University of Toronto. It will bring together Canadian and international writers and scholars.

From the Garden to the Trenches is the second of three international conferences in the Approaching War research project supported by the Leverhulme Trust, marking the approaching centenary of the First World War. The Canadian conference will focus on childhood, culture and war from the perspectives of the Americas and the Caribbean. The first conference, held in Sydney, Australia, in 2011, focused on the global south, and the third, focusing on Great Britain and Europe, will take place in Newcastle, Great Britain in 2013.

The Canadian conference will be held in two locations over three days, beginning at the White Oaks Conference Centre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, sponsored by Brock University, then moving to the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Book and Trinity College in Toronto on the second and third days respectively.

Confirmed speakers include British author Michael Morpugo and seven Canadian authors for young people: Hugh Brewster, Deborah Ellis, Sarah Ellis, Linda Granfield, Kevin Major, Arthur Slade and John Wilson. Other conference speakers include: Margaret Higonnet (University of Connecticut, Storrs), Michael Joseph (Rutgers University), Andrea McKenzie (New York University) and Paul Stevens (author of Winston Churchill’s Military Romanticism).

For information on From the Garden to the Trenches, visit www.fromthegardentothetrenches.com. For further information on the entire international series of conferences and project partners and museums, visit www.fww-child.org.

https://gardentotrenchesconf.eventbrite.ca/