Barbara Lehman

Dr. Lehman received her doctorate at the University of Virginia and has been at the Mansfield campus since 1986. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on children's literature and literacy education. Her research is in child-centered literary criticism, international children's literature, and literature-based practices in elementary and middle school classrooms. She has co-edited a book on Teaching with Children's Books: Paths to Literature-based Instruction, co-authored a book on Global Perspectives in Children's Literature, and was co-editor of Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. She received the Excellence in Scholarship award (1995) and the Ohioana James P. Barry award for Editorial Excellence (2000).

Dr. Lehman's scholarly interests focus on child-centered literary criticism, global children's literature, and curricular uses of children's literature. She has examined the characteristics of children's novels that both appeal to child readers and that have received critical acclaim in order to develop a perspective that fully integrates both parts of the term "children's literature." She also has focused on literary, social, and cultural contexts of children's literature from around the world, with a special interest in South Africa where she spent a year as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. Finally, she has investigated the uses of children's literature in literacy instruction and across the curriculum. She describes how literary study with children can be infused throughout elementary programs in her book, Children's Literature and Learning: Literary Study Across the CurriculumResearchChildren's Literature; Multicultural/International Literature; Literature in Curricular ContextsTeaching

• Seminar on International Children's Literature
• Seminar on Children's Literature and Education in the South African Context
• Multicultural Children's Literature
• Literature for Middle Childhood

• Elementary Section Steering Committee, NCTE
• Language Arts review board, NCTE
• Board member, Children's Literature Assembly, NCTE
• Co-editor, Journal of Children's Literature, Children's Literature Assembly of NCTE
• Co-chair, Notable Books in the Language Arts Committee, Children's Literature Assembly, NCTE
• Co-editor, Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, International
• Board member, United States Board on Books for Young People
• Hans Christian Andersen Award nominating committee, USBBY
• Chair, Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award nominating committee, USBBY
• Chair, Arbuthnot Award Committee, IRA
• The Reading Teacher review board, IRA
• Co-editor, Children's Books column, The Reading Teacher, IRA
• Chair, Notable Books for a Global Society Committee, IRA Children's Literature and Reading SIG
• Article Award committee, Children's Literature Association
• OSU Emerging Academic Leaders program participant (2003-2004)
• Fulbright Scholar application review committee for Southern Africa, Council for International Exchange of Scholars

• Mansfield Faculty Award for Excellence in Service (2008)
• Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children Committee, NCTE
• Ohioana Library Association James P. Barry Award for Editorial Excellence (2000)
• OSU-Mansfield Excellence in Scholarship Award (1995)

• Lehman, B.A. (2004-2005). J. William Fulbright Lecturing/Research Award, Council for International Exchange of Scholars at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa.
• Winberg, C., Nduna, J., van der Geest, T., & Lehman, B.A. (2004). A meta-analysis of the teaching of technical writing to students for whom English is not a first language ($5,000). Conference on College Composition and Communication, National Council of Teachers of English.

• Lehman, B.A. (2007). Children literature and learning: Literary study across the curriculum.. New York: Teacher's College Press.
• Freeman, E.B., & Lehman, B.A. (2001). Global perspectives in children's literature. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
• Sorensen, M.R., & Lehman, B.A. (Eds.) (1995). Teaching with children's books: Paths to literature-based instruction. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
• Lehman, B.A. (2005). Religious representations in children's literature: Disclosure through character, perspective, and authority. In D. L. Henderson & J.P. May (Eds.), Exploring culturally diverse literature for children and adolescents: Learning to listen in new ways (pp. 11-21). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Lehman, B.A. (2006). Children's literature and national identity in the new South Africa. Sankofa: A Journal of African Children's and Young Adult Literature, 5, 6-19.
• Lehman, B.A. (2006). Sense of place and displacement: Exploring international places in the writing of Dianne Case. Journal of Children's Literature, 32 (2), 66-69.
• Scharer, P.L., Lehman, B.A., & Peters, D. (2001). Pondering the significance of big and little or saving the whales: Discussions of narrative and expository text in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms. Reading Research and Instruction, 40, 297-314.
• Lehman, B.A., & Crook, P.R. (1998). Doubletalk: A literary pairing of The Giver and We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy. Children's Literature in Education, 29, 69-78.
• Lehman, B.A., & Scharer, P.L. (1995-96). Teachers' perspectives on response comparisons when children and adults read children's literature. Reading Research and Instruction, 35, 142-152.