NCTE: Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts

For those attending NCTE’s annual convention next week in Philadelphia, please consider attending CLA’s Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts session on Friday afternoon, 2:30 -5:15 at the Marriott, Grand Ballroom, Salon C, 5th Floor.

We will begin with a presentation of the 2009 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts. It is a superb list and it is always wonderful listening to the current committee members present them.

Then comes my part of the program — managing the roundtable conversations with eight of the honored books’ creators.  Attendees will get to spend time with all of them as they will move from table to table in short shifts (similar to some publisher previews or the speed-dating that happens at BEA).

This year we are thrilled to have the following creators coming:

Jen Bryant for Ringside 1929 and A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams.

Barry Denenburg for Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Remembered

Philip Dray for Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist

Jan Greenberg for Side by Side: New Poems Inspired by Art from Around the World

Stephen T. Johnson for A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet

Scott Reynolds Nelson and Marc Aronson for Ain’t Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry

Laura Vaccaro Seeger for One Boy

We end with a raffle of books.

It is a really great session, one I always attended long before I had anything personally to do with it.  Please come!