LibGuides: Reading Aloud to Children: Evaluating Children's Literature

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The catalog provides access to the library holdings of Appalachian State University (books, movies, music scores, music CDs, government documents, audiobooks, and more).

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Award Winners

Caldecott Medal
Awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

Newbery Medal
Awarded to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

Coretta Scott King Award
Awarded to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.

Pura Belpre Award
Awarded to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.

Orbis Pictus
Awarded for promoting and recognizing excellence in the writing of nonfiction for children.

Additional awards
A sampling of other awards.

Evaluating Reading Level

Use these databases to find the reading levels, descriptions, and reviews of books.

Children's Literature Comprehensive Database This link opens in a new window
CLCD is an academic and research resource for courses needing to locate children’s and young adult books and other media.

Reviews come from 36 review sources, including Children's Literature; The Horn Book Magazine; Kirkus; Media & Methods; and Parent's Guide. CLCD includes over one million fiction/non-fiction titles, hundreds of thousands of awards and professional reviews including author/title links, lesson plans and teaching guides. The search engine offers multiple options including 50 search filters for finding materials to determine interest and reading levels, selecting trade books based on standards, creating thematic and annotated biographies, interpreting reviews, developing classroom collections, book challenges and collection development.

Coverage: 1993-present

Scholastic Book Wizard
Scholastic Book Wizard provides grade level, book descriptions, and teaching resources.

Useful Databases for Research in Children's Literature

Use these databases to research about literature.

Something About The Author This link opens in a new window
Something About the Author Online covers the lives and works of authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults. Entries typically cover: personal life, career, writings, works in progress, adaptations, and additional sources.

Corresponds to the printed Something About the Author, the main series, and Something About the Author: Autobiography Series: more than 210 volumes; over 19,000 entries; and nearly 17,000 images.

Coverage: 1971-present
Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
LRC is built upon Gale's three author resources: Contemporary Authors, offering biographical coverage of more than 120,000 modern writers; Contemporary Literary Criticism, featuring entries on all authors appearing in CLC since Vol. 95 of the print series and select profiles of authors prior to Vol. 95; and Dictionary of Literary Biography, containing more than 10,000 biocritical essays on authors and their works.

Provides biographical, bibliographical, and critical content on literary figures from all time periods writing in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, and more.

Coverage: Current and retrospective
TeachingBooks.net This link opens in a new window
Contains instructional materials for K-12 fiction and nonfiction books.

Coverage: Varies

Websites About Children's Authors/Illustrators

Reading Rockets
Features video interviews with authors.
Scholastic Author/Illustrator Index
Features a collection of biographies and interviews with popular children's authors.
Kids Reads Author Page
Features author biographies and interviews.
ALA Great Web Sites for Kids
Provides a list of web sites designed for children about specific authors, genres, awards, or topics.

Library Guides

Reading Aloud to Children: Evaluating Children's Literature

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