Collections & Resources

The CCB houses a non-circulating research collection of children’s and young adult books. Our emphasis is on children’s books published within the last year and a small reference collection, and older books are being added to the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) collection in the Main Library.

We moved! We are now located in Room 211/212, 501 E Daniel St., Champaign, IL 61820.

Map of the CCB

Below are some of the featured books on display at the CCB.

Graphic Novels

Gr. 5 and up

Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest by Isabel Greenberg

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author/illustrator Isabel Greenberg’s Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest is a unique YA graphic novel about an epic quest through Arthurian legends and a girl’s journey to believe in magic again after the loss of her mother.

Gr. K-3

Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith, Illustrated by Boulet

A modern middle-grade graphic novel retelling of Beowulf, featuring a gang of troublemaking kids who must defend their tree house from a fun-hating adult who can instantly turn children into grown-ups.

Gr. 6 and up

Crumbs by Danie Stirling

Falling in love just got sweeter in this charming, romantic YA graphic novel from WEBTOON, the #1 digital comic platform. Ray, a young seer struggling with her powers, discovers first love and friendship in her town’s magic bakery.

Young Adult

Gr. 7-10

Lobizona by Romina Garber

Some people ARE illegal. Lobizonas do NOT exist. Both of these statements are false. Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who’s on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida. Until Manu’s protective bubble is shattered.

Gr. 7-12

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa

This bittersweet Pride & Prejudice remix follows a trans boy yearning for the freedom to live openly, centering queerness in a well-known story of longing and subverting society’s patriarchal and cisheteronormative expectations.

Gr. 9-12

Alebrijes by Donna Barba Higuera

From Donna Barba Higuera, Newbery and Pura Belpré Medal-winning author of The Last Cuentista, comes another novel to astonish us and create a whole new imaginative world, that holds a mirror to our own.

Middle Grade

Gr. 2-6

Finch House by Ciera Burch

Encanto meets Coraline in this “supremely successful, atmospheric” (Kirkus Reviews) middle grade story that deals with family ties, fear of change, and generational trauma as it follows a girl who must convince an old, haunted house to release its hold on her and her family.

Gr. 3-7

Living Ghosts & Mischievous Monsters by Dan SaSuWeh Jones, illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre 

Perfect for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark! A shiver-inducing collection of short stories to read under the covers, from a breadth of American Indian nations.

Picture Books

Gr. K-3

Sour Apple by Linda Liu

From the creator of Hidden Gem comes a funny and delightful new picture book about an apple who learns the importance of self-acceptance and patience after being left behind during picking season.

Gr. K-3

Beneath by Cori Doerrfeld

In this stunning story from New York Times bestselling creator Cori Doerrfeld, a child and their grandfather take a walk in the woods and discover more about themselves.

Pre-school-Kingergarten

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn by Kenard Pak

As trees sway in the cool breeze, blue jays head south, and leaves change their colors, everyone knows–autumn is on its way! Join a young girl as she takes a walk through the forest and town, greeting all the signs of the coming season. In a series of conversations with every flower and creature and gust of wind, she says good-bye to summer and welcomes autumn.

Here is a list of other collections on the UIUC campus that may be of interest to scholars of children’s literature.

The School (S)-Collection in the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign consists of over 178,000 cataloged volumes of children’s and young adult literature.

Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection. HathiTrust members steward the collection — the largest set of digitized books managed by academic and research libraries — under the aims of scholarly, not corporate, interests.

Illinois is co-host (with Indiana University) of the HathiTrust Research Center, which offers data sets, consultations, training, longer-term collaborations, and a variety of text-mining and analytic tools for working with the enormous collections of the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The American Library Association Archives is the repository for the American Library Association, the world’s oldest and largest national library association.

The ALA Archives consists of official records, correspondence, publications, photographs, sound recordings, films, and videotapes. Research material is arranged in five general areas: administrative and staff offices, associations and divisions, round tables, committees and members’ papers, and affiliated and associated organizations.

The National Council of Teachers of English Archives documents the history of the National Council of Teachers of English and the teaching profession. The University Archives has over 130 cubic feet of NCTE materials. These records, dating from the organization’s founding in 1911 to the present, document NCTE’s history of advocacy for literacy, as well as its affiliates’ history, including the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and the Conference on English Education (CEE). Further information can be found on NCTE’s homepage.