Winners!

A Closer Look at the Year's 100 Best Books for Children, Grades K-6
April 27, April 28*, April 29 or April 30, 2010 (New Jersey)

 *The April 28th workshop has been CANCELLED.

QUICK LINK — Order the new Winners Handbook (2010) now!

Judy Freeman’s wildly popular idea-packed full-day workshop, sponsored by her publisher Libraries Unlimited, is presented every spring in north, central, and south New Jersey. For more than 20 years, Judy’s WINNERS! conference has offered innovative and practical ways to use the best of the year’s children’s books for curricular connections, thematic tie-ins, resource-based learning, and just plain fun. It’s a field day for K-6 teachers, school and public librarians, library aides, reading specialists, curriculum coordinators, administrators, parents, and other children’s literature-lovers.

JUDY FREEMAN (http://www.JudyReadsBooks.com) is a well-known speaker, consultant, and writer on all aspects of children’s literature, storytelling, booktalking, and school librarianship. She is a visiting lecturer in the School of Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute in New York City, where she teaches courses in children’s literature and storytelling. A former school librarian, she gives conferences, workshops, speeches, and performances throughout the U.S. and the world for teachers, librarians, parents, and children, and is a national seminar presenter for BER (Bureau of Education and Research). Judy served as a member of the Newbery Committee to select the Newbery Award book for the year 2000, and was recently elected to the 2008 Sibert Informational Book Award Committee.

Judy's books, Books Kids Will Sit Still For and Once Upon a Time: Using Storytelling, Creative Drama, and Reader's Theater with Children in Grades PreK-6 (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), won the 2009 Anne Izard Storyteller's Choice Award. Her mega-books, Books Kids Will Sit Still For 3 (2006) and its popular companions Books Kids Will Sit Still For: The Complete Read-Aloud Guide (1990), and More Books Kids Will Sit Still For (1995), are indispensable resources for literature-based classrooms and libraries.

Judy writes several online book review columns, including “Desperate Librarians" for the online database NoveList, and "What's New" for School Library Journal's Curriculum Connections. Her latest and most exciting project is writing the children's book reviews and other content for author James Patterson's spectacular website for parents, teachers, librarians, and kids: www.ReadKiddoRead.com, which was named one of ALA's Great Web Sites for Kids for 2009, and won the first annual Innovations in Reading Prize from the National Book Foundation in 2009.

For the best professional day of the year, here's what you'll find at Winners!:

• Lively, concise, honest evaluations of 100+ new and exemplary children's books chosen by Judy Freeman, major professional journals, and awards committees as the year's "best".
• Demonstrations of read-alouds, booktalks, story telling, creative dramatics, Reader's Theater, poetry, songs, and a host of literature-based activities to excite kids about books.
• Practical, motivating ways to enhance students' presentation skills to get them reading with comprehension, expression, fluency, and joy.
• Scores of successful kid-tested techniques, prompts, and ideas for reading and writing to use immediately in school and library programs, booktalks, and lessons across the school curriculum.
• Samples of student work, puppets, props, and tie-ins incorporating comprehension and higher level thinking skills to extend children's response to literature.
• Irresistible new titles perfect for read-alouds, read-alones, Guided Reading, Literature Circles, and Book Clubs.
• A comprehensive WINNERS! handbook—free with your registration— with a thoroughly annotated and indexed list of the year’s best children’s books, lesson plans, teacher’s guides, stories, songs, and an Internet resource list.
• A chance to personally examine all titles discussed, plus the opportunity to buy a variety of the best new titles at our convenient conference book store.
• A day to laugh, connect, share, and celebrate literature with leading teachers, librarians, and other children's book hounds.
• Unlimited reasons to fall in love with children's literature all over again.