When Jim McKenna Reads,
Kids Learn to Love Books

Jim McKenna is a retired speech therapist who has devoted his life to helping children improve their language skills. His goal is to make children want to read for themselves, and he does it by combining many years of teaching experience with a lifetime of work in community theater. Using voices, characterizations, inflections, accents, articulation, emotional expression and just plain good acting, Jim reads stories and books so they become, in his words, "commercials for the language." Now he's devoting his time to helping teachers and parents do the same.

Here's what Bernard Waber, author of "lra Sleeps Over", said about Jim's storyreading: " . . . a most stirring, touching, absolutely enchanting reading of "lra Sleeps Over". . . I will remember forever the nuances of humor and sensitivity you found in the text that even I hadn't realized were there."

The success of Jim's read-aloud presentations make him a recognized authority on reading to children. He has presented at the New York State Reading Association Conference at the Concord, at Hodge Podge Books' "Let the Reading Begin" Conference in Albany, the Parents as Reading Partners Conferences in Utica, Buffalo and Long Island, and The Young Authors' Conference in Naples, FL.