The year 2026 marks a year of change for the Chicago Public Library, given that an 82nd branch of the Chicago Public Library is opening on the Obama Presidential Center campus, the Chicago Public Library Foundation is celebrating 40 years, and a search for a new leader is reaching an end.
Amid the changes, CPLF continues its tradition of honoring writers, artists and local change-makers. This year, South Shore native and author Gabriel Bump is receiving the 21st Century Award, while best-selling author and illustrator Mo Willems is the recipient of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award.
The foundation also honored its late president and CEO, Brenda Langstraat Bui, with a namesake service award during the announcement of awardees earlier this month. Her husband Ve Bui accepted the honor, holding back tears. Langstraat Bui died in February at the age of 52. The award in her name will be given to others who contribute as leaders and who embody her qualities and advocacy for the city’s libraries.
Bob Wislow, CPLF’s board chair and interim managing director, thanked Langstraat Bui for the selection of this year’s winners.
“When Brenda started, she said ‘the library was here long before us, and it’s going to be here long after us, but while we’re here, let’s make it as good as we can possibly make it in our tenure,’ and that’s what she’s done for us,” Wislow said, adding that the next CEO and president will be decided before the foundation’s award dinner in October.
“It is an honor to see my silly work championed with great seriousness in such a vibrant and essential library system,” children’s book author and illustrator Willems said in a statement. “My love for libraries stems from one word on the front door: OPEN. Libraries open opportunities to get excited and relax, discover and reminisce, be challenged and comforted. They are the intellectual and emotional subway line of our nation, connected and open to all.”
Bump recalls visiting the Avalon and the Blackstone branches in his youth. He was introduced to journalism as a University of Chicago Lab student and studied it at Mizzou in Columbia, Missouri, before finding creative writing.
“What I loved most about writing in Chicago was that I was writing a lot about my community and my neighborhood,” Bump said. “Writing articles about gang violence, segregation, it helped me understand my community better.”
He transferred from Missouri to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago to focus on fiction, “wanting to find a way into truth through imagined worlds.” he received his masters at from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he now teaches. He’s written three books in six years — “Everywhere You Don’t Belong,” “The New Naturals,” and his latest, “Don’t Stop Snowing,” which comes out in November. Bump refers to his body of work as a trilogy.
“They are three books about my life before things settled down,” Bump said. “I wrote these books in my late 20s … went through hard times mentally, and felt like all I had was writing and literature. Now, I’m married with two kids, teaching the next generation of confused 20-year-olds, looking back on my previous work with different perspectives. They’re all works of fiction — parts of me everywhere in it — but this one is about fatherhood, being a son. At the heart of ‘Don’t Stop Snowing’ is this idea of working on yourself … thinking about who you are, what you want from the world, how are you going to make yourself happy, so you can pass that along to other people.”
If you go
The 2026 Chicago Public Library Foundation Awards will be Oct. 13 at UIC’s Dorin Forum, 725 W. Roosevelt Road; tickets and more information at cplfoundation.org/awards
