Speakers

Opening KEYNOTE: Jennifer LaGarde

Opening Keynote

3 Sessions

Jennifer LaGarde is a lifelong teacher and learner with more than 20 years in public education. She is passionate about leveraging technology to help students build authentic reading lives, meeting the unique needs of students living in poverty, and helping learners of all ages discern fact from fiction in the information they consume. Jennifer is the coauthor, with Darren Hudgins, of Fact vs. Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking in the Age of Fake News (ISTE, 2018) and Developing Digital Detectives (ISTE, 2021). She is also a part-time lecturer in the MLIS program at Rutgers University, where she has taught courses including Emerging Literacies, Young Adult Literature, and Children’s Literature. In addition, Jennifer serves as the Library-Literacy Mentor with Bookelicious and hosts the podcast The Reader’s Heart. She currently lives, works, reads, and drinks lots of coffee in Olympia, Washington. You can follow her adventures at www.librarygirl.net.

Lunch KEYNOTE: Dr. JaNay Brown-Wood

Lunch Keynote

Book Signing

JaNay Brown-Wood, PhD, is an award-winning and New York Times Best-Selling children’s author, poet, educator, scholar, and a former professor of Early Childhood Education and Child Development. Her first children’s book Imani’s Moon won the NAESP Children’s Book of the Year Award and was featured on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, and her second book Grandma’s Tiny House: A Counting Story! won the CELI Read Aloud Book Award. JaNay has over twenty-five books published including the popular Where in the Garden picture book series, the Harriet Tubman and Simone Biles Little Golden Book Biographies, the Scholastic Love Puppies chapter book series, and the highly praised picture book Jam, Too!—an NCTE Notable Poetry Book for 2025. JaNay is also featured in several educational web-videos including Cooking with JaNay and Jammies with JaNay and she travels the country presenting to children, teachers, librarians, administrators, parents and community members. JaNay lives in California with her husband Catrayel, her daughter Vivian, and her turtle Theodora. Learn more about JaNay on her website.

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