The Worlds of Words joins a number of museums and collections on the University of Arizona campus for Museum Day!
Cultural institutions including museums, special collections and centers across U of A campuses are participating in a celebration for the community. Participating venues will have free or reduced admissions. This includes Worlds of Words!
Explore the Worlds of Words 2026 spring exhibit, Literary Identities. This exhibit, which features the De Natura Libris project, asks you to consider your own connections to reading.
“While public media overemphasizes the mechanics of reading, this exhibit highlights our identities and joy as readers — how we view ourselves as a reader, what we enjoy reading, where we like to read and what stories have changed our lives,” says Kathy Short, director of Worlds of Words and Regents Professor.
In addition to guided tours and activities around the exhibit, the center will display a small curated set of art from our archives that enhance the exhibit and art from illustrators who presented at this year’s Tucson Festival of Books. Additional projects from patrons will be on display as well.
Website forthcoming for more information about other campus sites offering tours and other programming for U of A Museum Day.
To request disability-related accommodations that would ensure your full participation in this event, please email wow@arizona.edu or call 520.621.9340.
Event details may change. More information to follow.
By Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director, Worlds of Words Center
Literary Identities, a new exhibit in the Worlds of Words Center featuring the De Natura Libris project, offers people the opportunity to examine themselves as readers. The exhibit of altered photographs about books and reading also includes picturebooks where reading is central to the book or characters’ identities along with hands-on activities to encourage visitors explore their own identities as readers.
“While public media overemphasizes the mechanics of reading, this exhibit highlights our identities and joy as readers — how we view ourselves as a reader, what we enjoy reading, where we like to read and what stories have changed our lives,” says Kathy Short, director of Worlds of Words and Regents Professor.
A new traveling exhibit featuring international books for and about young people with disabilities makes its U.S. debut in the Worlds of Words Center in time to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The books in this exhibit show how children around the world can read independently, learn alongside their peers and enjoy all life has to offer.
Meet the artist behind the exhibit! Award-winning illustrator Joe Cepeda joins the Worlds of Words Center for a reception featuring Cepeda Stories: Everyone Has a Story to Tell, an exhibit that begins with the assertion that each one of us has unique life experiences worth sharing. This exhibit of original art on loan from Cepeda challenges visitors to share their stories.
For the reception, the center will open our special collections to share original illustrations we pulled from our archives to complement the new exhibit. This art includes a variety of mediums to illustrate themes including family mealtimes, scenes from school and children at play.
The reception is free and open to the public. Please RSVP
To request disability-related accommodations that would ensure your full participation in this event, please email wow@arizona.edu or call 520.621.9340.
Event details may change. More information to follow.
By Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director, Worlds of Words Center
Photo courtesy of Joe Cepeda
Cepeda Stories: Everyone Has a Story to Tell begins with the assertion that each one of us has unique life experiences that are worthy of sharing. This Spring 2025 exhibit of original art by award-winning illustrator, Joe Cepeda, challenges visitors to share their stories. The exhibit is free and open to the public at the Worlds of Words Center in the University of Arizona College of Education. Continue reading →
Join the Worlds of Words Center to experience the power of “Black White Grey,” an exhibit on loan from the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany. Come for a guided tour and stay to enjoy light refreshments and participate in a public art project!
Students from the Indigenous Teacher Education Program (ITEP) visiting the Worlds of Words Center complete a double-sided puzzle that is part of the ‘Black White Grey’ exhibit from the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany.
For the reception, the center will open our special collections to look at original illustrations and sketches we pulled from our archives to complement the new exhibit. Additionally, we have seven original illustrations from Moon Song by Ron Himler on display. These striking watercolor and gouache pieces are part of a recent donation by the artist of more than 400 illustrations.
The reception is free and open to the public. Please RSVP.
To request disability-related accommodations that would ensure your full participation in this event, please email wow@arizona.edu or call 520.621.9340.
Event details may change. More information to follow.
Contact Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director, Worlds of Words Center
When the average person thinks about picturebooks, black and white illustrations seldom come to mind. But they do exist. “Black White Grey,” a traveling exhibit from the International Youth Library (IYL) in Munich, Germany is on view for the first time in the U.S. in the Worlds of Words Center in the University of Arizona College of Education. The exhibit shows how illustrators use the expressive power of lines, shapes, contours and contrasts to create captivating pictures with a unique aesthetic and atmospheric mood.
Oliver (age 6) inspects a hanging medallion that depicts a detail from an illustration in Tierenduin by Dutch author and illustrator, Geert Vervaeke, as part of the ‘Black White Grey’ exhibit on loan from the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany and on display in the Worlds of Words Center.
“Using only black, white and gray in illustrations can be surprisingly evocative, stripping away the distraction of color to reveal a depth and nuance that resonates on a profoundly emotional level. These monochromatic palettes invite readers to engage with the essence of the story in a raw and powerful way, proving that sometimes the simplest choices can yield the most profound impact,” says Kathy Short, director of Worlds of Words and Regents Professor. Continue reading →
by Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director of Worlds of Words Center
The Worlds of Words Center adds original illustrations from 55 picturebooks to its holdings as a result of a recent crowdfunding campaign and donations of art by Mary J. Wong. The new pieces are from classic, award-winning, and global children’s literature and include works by illustrators visiting for the Tucson Festival of Books. A selection of the new acquisitions will be on display leading up to the book festival and for UArizona Museum Day at Worlds of Words in the University of Arizona College of Education.
Project FOCUS student Daniela Garcia (first-year) and Elementary Education major Lily Volmer (sophomore) compare an original illustration by Jason Chin to its final version. Chin’s work for Watercress earned the 2022 Caldecott Medal.
By Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director, Worlds of Words Center
The Grimm Brothers’ collection “Children’s and Household Tales” inspired visual images in illustrations that left their indelible mark on the memory of successive generations. For the first time in the U.S., the traveling exhibition “The Colourful World Beyond the Seven Hills” invites people to experience or re-experience this tradition of folktale illustration from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Posters of illustrations from the book collections of the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, are now available for viewing in the Worlds of Words Center of Global Literacies and Literatures of the UArizona College of Education.
Middle School Reading Ambassadors work through a mixed-up Grimm Brother’s storytelling activity that Worlds of Words offers alongside the The Colourful World Beyond the Seven Hills exhibit on loan from the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany.
By Rebecca Ballenger, Associate Director, Worlds of Words Center
It is with great pleasure that we write to express our heartfelt thanks to our community for your support of our first-ever crowdfund campaign. We exceed our campaign goal, raising a total of $14,583!
