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Association of Children's Librarians

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Dorothy Helfeld Fellowship

The 2025-26 application period is OPEN! 

  • Fellowship application
  • Applications are due Friday, June 13, 2025

Who is eligible?

We encourage Northern California students, colleagues new to the field, or people with interest in children’s literature and librarianship to apply.

About the Fellowship

The fellowship offers rich opportunities for professional development, networking, and mentorship. Fellows will be paired with mentors and introduced to an active network of Bay Area children’s librarians who meet monthly to share their passion for children’s literature and library services. 

The annual fellowship covers the cost of a year’s membership in ACL, access to monthly professional development opportunities, mentorship, ACL’s digital review publication Bayviews, and free attendance to any ACL hosted events including the Performers Showcase and the Institute. Fellowship term runs from September 2025 to December 2026. 

Fellows are expected to make a reasonable effort to attend the monthly ACL meetings (currently over Zoom) and to become regular reviewers for the organization for the duration of their Fellowship. Additional in-person events may occur in the San Francisco Bay Area. We will notify applicants in August 2025.

For further information or questions, contact the Helfeld Committee.

Who is Dorothy Helfeld?

The Association of Children’s Librarians of Northern California (ACL) offers four annual membership fellowships in tribute to Dorothy Helfeld, a member and reviewer for this organization from 1992 until her death in 2008. Dorothy’s library experience spanned several decades and locales. Her ACL reviews reflected her passion for presenting the best to children and her always-growing knowledge of story and authors, which she also shared in her contributions to the annual Institute bibliographies. To Dorothy, reading offered the boundless opportunity for celebrating, untangling and enduring the complicated knot of life. The fellowships in her memory allow the Association of Children’s Librarians of Northern California to extend Dorothy’s excitement about children and their books to those at the beginning of their involvement in the field which meant so much to her.

Past Fellows

2024 Fellows: Jennifer Crain and Alva Fong

2023 Fellows: Audrie Adams, Maya Sungold, and Hua Zhang

2022 Fellows: Jennifer Agarwal, Shani Boyd, Greta Marti, Karen Quest, and Megan Wolf

2019 Fellows: Amy Bouris, Solia Martinez-Jacobs, Traci Willard, and Louise Yu

2018 Fellows: Catherine Pyun and Tara Hjalmquist

2017 Fellows: Arin Hailey Reese, Alyson Runke, Emily Ferne, Jennifer Weisberg

2016 Fellows: Mahasin Aleem, Julia Christy, Lolade Gbadebo and Renee Ting

2015 Fellows: Kayla Figard, Michelle Ng, and Sarah Zaharako

2013 Fellows: Stephanie Conrad, Cassy Lee, and Ted McCoy

Note: The Dorothy Helfeld Fellowship was previously known as the Dorothy Helfeld Scholarship, and was renamed to Dorothy Helfeld Fellowship in 2014.

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