Steven Layne
Toni Buzzeo connected me with a speaker that I want to tell you about because I believe he is relatively unknown in the school library world so you can get him before he is booked. Steven Layne http://www.stevelayne.com was the keynote speaker for our Tennessee Association of School Librarians (TASL) Libraries and Literacy Forum this past weekend. Steven has long been known in the “reading” world speaking at IRA and large literacy conferences. He was dynamic, entertaining, and motivational. Our forum was attended by a wide variety of educational stakeholders all exploring the role of school libraries in literacy in Tennessee. Every person raved about his keynote and the impact he had on their life.
Steven is an author of many different types of books including picturebooks (like T is for Teacher, The Principal’s Night Before Christmas and many others); young adult books (Mergers and This Side of Paradise), and poetry/gift books (Life’s Literacy Lessons: Poems for Teachers, Verses for Mom’s Heart, and Verses for Dad’s Heart). To give you a personal glimpse, my oldest son listened to his keynote, drove him back to the airport and announced to me today that he’d read Mergers and “It was pretty cool.” High praise indeed! (#1 son came in today to tell me more about Mergers. He said that it was really fun to read and didn’t bore him like lots of books did. He said it was so compelling that he read 135 pages before he knew it. He told me that that was his kind of book and I should find more like it.
I know it’s unconventional to go on about speakers, but I know how hard it is to find quality speakers that you can depend upon. Steven will be at ALA in New Orleans and we’ll be sitting together at the Caldecott/Newbery banquet, so come on up and say “Hi.” Thanks, Toni, for the wonderful lead.
