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After 25+ wonderful years as an elementary school librarian, I left my job for a new one. Now I’m on the road 100+ days a year spreading my message--Read to Your Kids!—to teachers, librarians, parents, and children at conferences and workshops across the U.S. and abroad.

It’s been a wild ride. I’ve now spoken in all 50 of the states, in almost every big or little city you can name. I know everything there is about airport delays, airport food, and bad weather, but it’s still been a lot of fun. In my workshops and seminars, my all-day passion play and vaudeville act, I sing and dance, praise and pontificate on my favorite children’s books of the year for grades PreK-6. Basically, what I do for a living is fool around with words. (You can see more details at www.JudyReadsBooks.com.)

I teach a storytelling course for grad students at the School of Information and Library Science at Pratt Institute in NYC each summer, and just put together a book based on 20+ years of teaching, Once Upon a Time: Using Storytelling, Creative Drama, and Reader’s Theater with Children in Grades PreK-6 (Libraries Unlimited, 2007). Sometime this spring, I’m hoping to make a CD of the stories and songs I included in the book.

People ask, “Oh, you write children’s books?” and I say, “Not exactly. I write mostly about children’s books and how to have a ball with them.” I’ve written three books in the “Books Kids Will Sit Still For” series, and every year, to go with my all-day children’s literature workshops, I write The Winners Handbook. (The new one will be out in May, 2008 from Libraries Unlimited, containing my 100+ favorite books of 2007. Go to www.LU.com/winners for more info.)

In between travel weeks, I’m home, in the attic, working on books and articles. Nowadays I write children’s book reviews for a variety of sources—the “Wild About Books” column for School Library Media Activities Monthly, “What’s New” for School Library Journal’s Curriculum Connections (www.slj.org; pull down “Newsletters” and you can find my little columns), and “Desperate Librarians” for NoveList, the online subscription database you can probably access through your public library.

This past year I was on the Sibert Committee to pick the most distinguished informational book for children. Our gold medal was The Wall by Peter Sís (Farrar, 2007); our honor books were Nic Bishop Spiders (Scholastic) and Lightship by Brian Floca. In 2000, I was on the Newbery Committee that chose Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Both were memorable experiences.

After 25+ wonderful years as an elementary school librarian, I left my job for a new one. Now I’m on the road 100+ days a year spreading my message--Read to Your Kids!—to teachers, librarians, parents, and children at conferences and workshops across the U.S. and abroad. It’s been a wild ride. I’ve now spoken in all 50 of the states, in almost every big or little city you can name. I kno... More