Tag Archives: Billie M. Levy

Oral Histories added to NCLC’s website

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l-r: Terri J. Goldich, Curator; Billie M. Levy, Donor; Kena Sosa, Researcher. Seated: Mrs. Eva Greenwood.

l-r: Terri J. Goldich, Curator; Billie M. Levy, Donor; Kena Sosa, Researcher. Seated: Mrs. Eva Greenwood.

In April, 2011, Ms. Kena Sosa became the 4th recipient of a Billie M. Levy Travel and Research Grant. Her topic of research is the experience of Jewish children who escaped Nazi persecution to England and other countries by means of the Kindertransport program. This link goes to a full description and access to the transcripts of two oral histories conducted with women who were transported to England as children in the Kindertransport program. Ms. Sosa’s PowerPoint presentation, a requirement of the Levy Travel and Research Grant, is also available from the web site.  This was the first grant presentation to leave the audience in tears.

Announcing a new digital project

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A new project to digitize TV interviews by Billie Levy featuring authors, illustrators, editors, and collectors in the field of children’s literature is now available . They are from the “Children’s Books: Their Creators and Collectors” series filmed at WHC-TV. Go to http://www.lib.uconn.edu/services/video/streams.php and scroll down, or go the web page at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/services/video/levy.php.  There is also a link from the NCLC’s web site at http://nclc.uconn.edu.

This project was made possible by the generosity of Susan Aller of West Hartford, in honor of our Miss Billie. The project was also made possible by West Hartford Community Television. Ms. Aller is the author of more than a dozen biographies for young people, including the stories of J. M. Barrie, Florence Nightingale, George Eastman, Louisa May Alcott, and Mary Jemison.  She has worked as a magazine editor in New York City, and her essays on a variety of topics have appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.  Ms. Aller is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and lived for extended periods in Spain and France, before coming to Connecticut in 1979.   As a collector of antique children’s books, she has been an active supporter of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.  She participates weekly in a long-standing writers’ group and is a member of the Saturday Morning Club of Hartford, a women’s writing group founded in 1876. Ms. Aller is the mother of two married sons and has six grandchildren.

–Terri J. Goldich