Judy's Workshops

BER Seminars • Winners! • Books Kids Will Sit Still For • Selecting Books for Children • Literature and Library Skills • Booktalking & Reading Aloud • Multicultural Books • Once Upon a Time • Storytelling • Hi Ho Librario • Keynote Speeches • Parent Programs • Musical Booktalk •

BOOKS KIDS WILL SIT STILL FOR: Children's Literature Every Classroom Teacher and Librarian Should Know

Teachers and librarians are always looking to add to their core collection of memorable books to read aloud or with their students, searching out those titles that will turn their kids into lifetime readers. How do you pick the best books out of the many published each year? Who has time to read all those books?

As a children's book reviewer, writer, and workshop presenter, Judy Freeman reads thousands of books each year. ("Get a life!" say her friends and relatives; her colleagues say, "Boy, I wish I had nothing better to do than read books all day.") Of all those books, some rise to the top like cream, and those are the books that keep a reviewer content.

Working closely with children and teachers provides Judy with an invaluable window into which children's books continue to motivate, inspire, and intrigue. Each year, Judy visits several elementary schools in the Central New Jersey area, and field tests scores of new books with the people for whom they are intended-actual children. She meets with dozens of teachers and librarians and hundreds of eager children, who are always happy to fool around with new books. She reads aloud, booktalks, and tries out new ideas for bringing these books to life. Teachers and librarians then follow up on these books with their classes, and let Judy use their original, creative, and eye-opening responses.

In this workshop, Judy will pull together anywhere from 20-50 of her personal list of memorable favorites from the past year, depending on the length of the workshop (ranging from one hour to all-day). She will show and tell the ways she has used them to inspire children through curricular tie-in activities including storytelling, creative drama, Reader's Theater, poetry, songs, writing and illustrating, and booktalking for grades K-6.

Depending on your needs and interests, this program can also be tailored as a retrospective look at best books from the past decade or so.

Judy compiles an original, comprehensive, annotated bibliography and handout that incorporates a wide range of ideas for using children's literature and sends the school district or library a master copy to be duplicated for each participant.