National Book Month: Best Online Resources for Finding Children’s Books
I mentioned before this is National Book Month and I wondered to myself, ‘Are there blogs about children’s books? A place parents can go to weed through all the choices in children’s literature narrowing down the field to a more reasonable and less overwhelming number of books?
I have very long conversations with myself you know, in fact it’s amazing I ever find the time to speak to anyone else beside myself.
I realized pretty quickly asking if there are blogs about children’s books was pretty stupid. Since there’s a blog for just about everything, even other people’s grocery lists. I feel a little like my mother at this point facing the internet with pure awe and confusion. “You mean the actual words take you to other sites?”
I like buying books for my kids but I also hate clutter. I hate it so much that today when Max tried to bring home a Pez dispenser his friend said he could have I decided I’d rather face a massive tantrum than have another tiny piece of clutter in my house. So, if I’m buying books, they’d better be good. We can go to the library and welcome all the paperback Spongebob novellas my daughter can tolerate for a few weeks. We don’t need to actually own them.
So I’ve bookmarked a few blogs for finding good books for kids. The list may not be complete, but like I tell my mother, “If you click on the colored words….you’ll find even more information.”
Bookbuds is a site started by Anne Boles Levy who has a preschool son who enjoys reading. After having “…been served several dozen helpings of green eggs and ham, fed countless cookies to innumerable mice, and said goodnight to gorillas and the moon and scores of lesser-known characters.” Anne decided to venture out past truck books (Oh God How Many Truck Books Can A Three-Year-Old read? Answer: Many.) and use her experience reviewing books for grown ups to find and review literature for kids. The site is organized by age and subject with an easy to understand rating system and a side bar full of further reading.
Book Carousel focuses only on picture books, recommending and reviewing several books I’m not sure I would have picked up at the library but have put on reserve. The blog’s author, Catherine Ross is a graduate of Kent University in England who has a background in business, publishing, and Internet book content. It looks like the site has slowed a bit since September but there are eight months of archives to mine for good books.
Three Silly Chicks is a new group blog of ‘Readers, Writers, and Reviewers of Funny Books for Kids.’ The contributors, Andrea Beaty, the author of When Giants Come To Play, Julia Durango, most recently the author of Cha-Cha Chimps and Carolyn Crimi, author of many books including ‘Boris and Bella’ use Three Silly Chicks to review funny books and to interview fellow authors of funny books.
I’ve really only shown you the very top of the KidLitOSphere, I wonder what sites you use to pick great books for your kids?
