Jim Giblin’s Cabin at the Highlights Foundation

Remembering Jim Giblin

Highlights Foundation founder Kent Brown was a good friend of Jim’s and and shared this memory with us.

Jim had a profound effect on all parts of the juvenile publishing industry. We knew that, you and I. We have seen it at work.

But what moved me most was Jim’s passion for helping others to believe in the magic their own writing can bring to children. The establishment of the James Cross Giblin Scholarship Fund ensures that passion is perpetual.

Let me tell you about a special moment, one I have never forgotten. July 12, 1986. Chautauqua number two and the first of seventeen years of Jim’s service as faculty for the Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop.

Anna Cross Giblin, Jim’s mother, and her good friend, Jeanne Prahl, were visiting Chautauqua, and had come to the hall to hear Jim speak. After taking the podium, Jim looked out and said,

“Before I begin my talk this morning, I want to introduce you to the person responsible for introducing me to children’s books and reading. Mother, will you please stand.”  That was a powerful tribute to a mother…and a mentor.

So many of us who write or publish or teach in the service of children have had special mentors.  Often a parent or grandparent or teacher influenced us at an early age. Some of us have been blessed to be able to serve in some small way as mentors for others. I like to think of mentoring as a wonderful cycle, surely less scientific than the Water Cycle of our fifth-grade years, but no less powerful. The influence of a mentor lives far beyond the mentor.

James Cross Giblin has been a mentor for many.

Learn More About Jim Giblin

• What An Editor’s Job Is, an interview with Roger Sutton of The Hornbook.
• James Cross Giblin’s Obituary, Publishers Weekly