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Getting Acquainted with Children's Literature
When thinking about completing your Picture Book Log and finding 100 unique titles across broad cultural perspectives and numerous genres, it could be overwhelming. To find ideas for great books to use within the classroom, look no further than the children's literature databases provided by UA Libraries! These databases provide multiple ways to search by subject, genre, author, reading level, age, and much more to find just the right book to share with your students.
Children's Literature Databases
The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) provides comprehensive coverage of children's books, reviews, awards and teaching materials. It reviews 3,000 books annually covering 24 sources since 1993. This database includes a multitude of search options to include reading metrics, reader's age/grade, genre, and publication information. Book results can include links to curriculum resources, professional reviews, associated reading programs, related books, synopsis, and awards.
Access the database through the UA Library Homepage or by Clicking HERE.
On the CLCD Homepage, click on "Product Login" and select "Enterprise PK-12".
The Advanced Search Screen gives you numerous search options to use. 
Each book record will have a multitude of resources connected to it. Click on the options tabs in the middle of the screen to jump to each resource. You can also easily check to see if the book is available for check out through the UA Library from this screen.
TeachingBooks.net is an online database of multimedia resources for children's and young adult books. The site offers educational materials to help readers connect with books, gain insights from authors, and enjoy reading. The site offers resources for K-12 students and educators in English and Spanish. It includes more than 275,000 resources about fiction and nonfiction books.
Use this database to find the following:
- Synopses of Children's and Young Adult Literature
- Author Information
- Book Discussion Guides
- Book Trailers
- Author Videos
- Lesson Plans
- Curated Book Lists and Collections
Access this database by going to TeachingBooks.net
On the Homepage, you can use the Search Bar at the top to search by subject, title, or author. To do more general browsing, click on the "Browse Our Resources" button in the middle of the page. To save your searches and create personalized book and resource lists, click on the 3 lines in the top left corner and create an Educator's Log In.
Browsing by Collection is a powerful way to find curated books based on a variety of factors. One filter that is unique to this database is the ability to find books with a specific phonics or phonological awareness focus.
Looking at the Long E book collection, we can see a variety of filters available on the left side of the page. These can further narrow down our results. The numbers in parenthesis after each category represent the number of books in the Long E collection that have that secondary filter.
After selecting a book, you will be taken to the book's resource page. Here you will find links to teaching activities, author information, book trailers, and much more.
The Children's Literature Review Database provides a comprehensive source to locate critical reviews of books and authors. It is a database that allows searching by author's name or title of a book to find critical information about that author or the title being searched. It is made up of a compilation of excerpts from reviews, criticism, and commentary on major authors and illustrators of books for children and young adults. It is primarily critical, but does have overviews of the writer's work and a short biographical section about the author. If you are looking for book reviews from periodicals like School Library Journal, The Horn Book, or Booklist, this is the database to use.
Access this database by going to the UA Library Homepage or by clicking HERE.
The database homepage provides a very basic search box to begin with. Enter either a title of a book (put quotation marks around the title) or an author's name into the search box.
Notice that when searching for an author, the database will show results of both reviews of the author's work as well as information and articles about the author.
When looking at a book review or article, it can be helpful to use the arrows at the top of the screen to resize the image so that the entire page is visible. Use the arrows to the left and right of the article to navigate to the previous and next pages of the work.
