July 28, 2026 
Capture the Wonder of Reading
This year’s conference will be in Winfield, Illinois at Grace Redeemer Church. We have a great line-up of presentations for librarians and book lovers alike. Check it out and register now, the date is October 17, 2026.
Grace Redeemer Church
Event Information
Date: October 17, 2026
Location: Grace Redeemer Church, 27W010 Parkway Dr., Winfield, Illinois
Registration Fees: $75
What’s on the conference schedule?
7:45 – 8:30 Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:30 – 8:45 Welcome
9:00 – 9:45 Keynote
The Wonder of Reading
by Jeff Crosby
Jeff Crosby is an organizational leader and writer who has spent more than four decades working in the world of words and ideas through roles in bookselling and book publishing, including at The Association of Logos Bookstores and InterVarsity Press. Since the spring of 2021, he has served as president of ECPA, the trade association of Christian publishers.
Crosby is also an author of several books including World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading (Paraclete Press, 2025), The Language of the Soul: Meeting God in the Longings of Our Hearts (Broadleaf, 2023) and editor and compiler of Days of Grace Through the Year (IVP, 2007), a collection of meditations drawn from the work of bestselling author Lewis B. Smedes. His next book, titled The Spirit in the Sky: The Power of Music in Our Search for Graceland, will be published on October 1 by Bloomsbury. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and trade journals including CRUX, Conversations Journal, Living Lutheran, Publishers Weekly, and CRA Today. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife Cindy.
9:45 – 10:00 Break: Book Swap/ Book Store
10:00 – 10:45 Workshops
Portrayal of Corrie ten Boom
by Gayle Haas
Wife, mother, grandmother, prayer warrior, teacher, dramatist/ storyteller, conference speaker, Gayle Haas graduated from Western Illinois University with a BA in Consumer Education and Home Economics, and taught in both public and private schools.
Gayle takes great pleasure in developing and performing dramatic monologues of historical and fictional characters. She currently portrays two main characters: Corrie ten Boom— a Holocaust survivor who worked with the Dutch underground to provide refuge for Jews in Holland during the Nazi occupation, and Grannie Carter—a fictional elderly woman with an infectious laugh who sprinkles her stories of timeless truths with country humor. Gayle and her husband, Dan, long-time residents of Aurora, Illinois, founded A Future and A Hope Foundation.
10:45 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 11:45 Workshops
Christian Children’s Books
Book talks of the latest and greatest books for kids
by Jen Brown
Jen Brown is the Library Media Center Director at the Wheaton Christian Grammar School in Winfield, IL. She also serves on the ECLA board where her expertise in school librarianship is highly appreciated.
Imagination & Vision
by Steve Smith
Steve Smith began his publishing career in 1984. He was active in licensing entertainment industry properties for publishing projects throughout the 1990s, working with Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century-Fox, and Sony Pictures. His book, Star Wars: The Art of Dave Dorman was a Random House bestseller in 1996. In the mid-2000s, Steve penned eight upper elementary novels.
In 2013, Steve acquired the license for The Obscure Cities, a series of French graphic novels, from Casterman. In 2018, Steve was nominated for an audiobook of the year by the Audies (given by the Audio Publishers Association) and a Grammy (for best spoken word recording) for his production of The Good Neighbor—a biography of Mr. Fred Rogers, narrated by LeVar Burton. In 2022, Steve was awarded the prestigious Will Eisner Comics Industry Award for best translation of a foreign material for his The Obscure Cities book, The Shadow of a Man.
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 2:00 Talk: New Adult Christian Fiction
Chris will be booktalking the hottest new Christian adult fiction.
By Chris Jager
Chris Jager has worked as Fiction Book Buyer for Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, MI over 25 years. She is a great supporter of all things reading and usually is found with book in hand. Unless she is chasing grandkids, spending time with her husband Mike, and their adult children.
2:15 – 3:00 Workshops
Book Repair with Darlene Aniolowski
Darlene is the church librarian at the First Presbyterian Church of LaGrange, Illinois, and often a participant in the monthly Zoom church library roundtables.
This will be a hands-on session focused on extending the life of your collection. It will cover some essential mending techniques.
Advice from C. S. Lewis on Choosing Books for Children
Dr. Melody Green holds a Ph.D. in Literature for Children and Adolescents, and was the church library coordinator for ten years at Christ Church, PCA, in Normal, IL. Before that, she was the library coordinator for Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, IL. Dr. Green has published various articles on Christianity and fantasy.
C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of the bestselling books of all time, and he wrote about types of children’s books and the importance of good children’s stories in more than one place. What advice would he give church librarians, Christian school librarians, and anyone else curating a collection of books for children today? Dr. Green will pull together ideas from several of his writings to answer this question—and will recommend a few books for your library or personal collection that he would have approved of.
3:15-4:00 Roundtables & POP-UP Book Club
School Librarians
Led by Jen Brown
At this roundtable, school librarians will enjoy sharing challenges and wins with other school librarians. We will discuss topical issues, solutions to challenges, and how we can serve our communities in the best way possible.
Church Librarians
Church librarians will get together and discuss their responsibilities and ways to enhance their work in the church. Bring your questions and comments on any ways that church libraries can be enhanced.
Led by Debbie Dehart and Ceil Carey
Debbie Dehart has been an avid reader (in two languages) all her life, even when she lived overseas and English books were hard to come by. She has been a librarian at Berean Baptist Church in Portage, MI since 2013, and because organization and the Dewey Decimal System are among her favorite things, she especially loves cataloging and making sure everything in the library is in order. She lives in Schoolcraft, MI with Terry, her husband of 40 years.
Ceil Carey worked for 10 years as a public school librarian and 15 as the head of the outreach department at the Plainfield Public Library. She has served her community in many library-related roles over the years, including 42 years on the Plano Public Library Board. Ceil reviews Christian literature for the ECLA website as well as for the Christie Awards. She has served as the co-president of the ECLA board for 10 years. Her deep passion for reading informs almost every aspect of her life. She can most often be found with her nose deep in a book, happy as a clam.
POP-UP Book Club
Cathy will lead a book discussion on The Atlas of Untold Stories by Sara Brunsvold.
Led by Cathy Askeland
Cathy is a retired middle school media director and a member of the ECLA board. One of her specialties is hosting the monthly Zoom Librarian Roundtable.
© New York Public Library
3:00 – 3:15 Break
3:30 – 4:00 Book Giveaway!
Besides all these wonderful presentations, all attendees will receive many new books to take home in the book giveaway, and everyone is invited to the book swap whether you bring books or not. Lunch will be provided. The fellowship and networking with other librarians and book lovers is an invaluable part of this conference. Don’t miss it!
Pop-up Bookstore
There will be a pop-up bookstore with a limited amount of books available on-site to purchase. Please remember to bring your tax-exempt ID if you plan to purchase books for your church. To purchase books from Baker Books you will need a debit or credit card, they do not accept cash or checks. There will also be a Baker Books discount available to use for online purchasing from Baker.
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