Subject Guides: Teaching English Language Arts: Children's Lit Reviews & Evaluating Resources

Citing Book Reviews

Learn how to cite book reviews, APA Citation Style (7th Edition)

Book Reviews

More Online Reviews

Apples with Many Seeds Recommendations for inspirational classroom resources. Maintained by Tammy Flanders, reference coordinator at The Doucette Library of Teaching Resources, in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary.
Canadian Children’s Book News Published quarterly, this magazine includes book reviews, interviews with authors and illustrators, annotated reading lists, and more.
Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review An academic quarterly journal that publishes peer-reviewed scholarly articles as well as book reviews, poems, and more.
CM: Canadian Review of Materials Book and media reviews, news and stories of interest to teacher librarians, parents and children.
Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures An interdisciplinary, scholar-led, refereed academic journal, the mandate of which is to publish research on and to provide a forum for discussion about cultural productions for, by, and about young people. Each issue features review essays.
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Kirkus Reviews Reliable and authoritative reviews on fiction, mysteries, sci-fi, translations, nonfiction, and children's books.
The Lion and the Unicorn A theme- and genre-centered journal of international scope committed to a serious, ongoing discussion of literature for children.
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Quill & Quire Kids' Books Reviews of Canadian children's picture books, children's and young adult fiction, and children's and young adult non-fiction.

Alberta School Library Council Lit Picks

ASLC LitPicks Brought to you by the Alberta School Library Council. Reviews include: curriculum connections, links to apps, author websites and other related resources. Users must create a free account and login to consult reviews.

Finding Reviews for Assignments: Start Here

Search for book reviews in the library catalogue

From the Library home page, select Advanced Search. Then, enter your search terms along with "book review" as shown in the following sample search.

Search for book reviews in selected databases and ejournals

Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) This link opens in a new window
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Indexes children's books, and includes selected reviews.
TeachingBooks This link opens in a new window
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A collection of instructional and enrichment resources focused on children's and young adult books. Contains author and illustrator interviews, teaching ideas, lesson plans, book trailers, vocabulary and pronunciation help, audiobook performances, and more. Covers tens of thousands of books with new ones added regularly.

Book Links For teachers and all other adults interested in connecting children with high quality books.
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The Horn Book Magazine Essential for everyone who cares about children’s and young adult literature. Includes articles, reviews and editorials. In publication since 1924.
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Children's Literature Sites

EPL Award Winning Books
ALSC Book and Media Awards Site by American Library Association.
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site
Children's Book Council
Teachers@Random
The Canadian Children's Book Centre
Database of Award Winning Children's Literature Is regularly updated and includes Canadian awards.

Teacher's Book Bank

Teacher's Book Bank This database of Canadian historical fiction and non-fiction books is brought to you by the Canadian Children's Book Centre with Historica Canada. These titles may be used by teachers to introduce topics and themes in Canadian history and by students carrying out research projects. Many of the books also offer opportunities for cross-curricular connections in language arts, geography, the arts, science and other subjects. In most cases, publishers have indicated specific grade levels and age ranges to guide selection.

Evaluating Resources

Provincial Resource Review Guide (Alberta) Part 1: Resource Management introduces the concepts that support the resource review process through which Alberta Education, school leaders, and teachers can provide learning and teaching resources for use in the local learning environment. Part 2: Guidelines for Resource Selection provides guidelines for developing new resources and using professional judgement in selecting resources for use in the local learning environment. School leaders and teachers may use the guidelines to develop local resource selection processes and create evaluation tools to approve resources for use in the local learning environment.
Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children's Books
Based on “Ten Quick Ways to Analyze Children’s Books for Racism and Sexism.” Updated in 2013.*
Building and Maintaining LGBTQ+ Picture Book Collections
Includes a guide to evaluating materials, recommended picture books, a guide to fighting censorship, and a list of recommended resources.
Guiding Voices: A Curriculum Development Tool for Inclusion of First Nation, Métis and Inuit Perspectives Throughout Curriculum
Can be used to determine the appropriateness of resources for use in curriculum. Part of the Guiding Voices Development Tool produced by Alberta Education.
10 Quick Ways to Analyze Children's Books for Racism and Sexism [pdf]
"Adapted from the original brochure, which was published by the Council on Interracial Books for Children."
Critical Evaluation Survey: Teacher Sites
This checklist helps educators to assess the visual/technical aspects, content, authority, pedagogy of websites.
How to Choose a Book (The Canadian Children's Book Centre)
Discover which genres are most suitable for your young readers.
Learn strategies on how to pick books based on the age of the reader.