Ready to be amused and enlightened? Join teacher-librarian Sarah Ressler Wright and a panel of humor authors and award-winning audiobook narrators including Dion Graham and Varian Johnson for Scholastic's Playing the Cards You're Dealt, Brandon Snider for writing and voicing his new Rube Goldberg series with Abrams and Recorded Books, and Olivia Abtahi for writing the Odyssey award winning Penguin audiobook Perfectly Parvin, as they provide amazing recommendations for connecting students with hilarious reads and spellbinding audio. The panel will interactively share strategies for finding humorous read alouds from traditionally marginalized communities, recognizing the benefits of oral texts, discussing witty writing, and providing a diverse selection of audiobooks to students and staff even on a limited budget.
They will remind you that by listening to audiobooks in tandem with print or digital texts, students can read a story and, with the passion of expert narrators, fall in love with literature. In addition, a professional narrator’s articulation allows students to both read and interpret a text simultaneously. Plus, listening to stories can be done alone or as a community, while completing chores or commuting, and, no matter why or where, rekindles the joy of reading and learning.
Furthermore, humor writing can captivate readers, especially those who dislike traditional storylines. Crafting punchlines and recognizing humor utilize higher levels thinking skills, and many disengaged individuals often love these texts! Humor writers on the panel will share their own journeys as readers as well as tips of how they hook readers and how librarians can use those hooks to connect with patrons.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion, participants will be able to provide diverse texts with humorous elements to patrons who may be struggling to find texts they want to read.
Upon completion, participants will be able to describe reasons that audiobooks are amazing resources that enrich a patron's reading experience and engage student and adult patrons who may not recognize themselves as readers.
Upon completion, participants will be able to provide inclusive and interesting audiobooks to patrons in a variety of ways, no matter their library budget.