Finding the Right Book

Help your students find an engaging book for SIR time!

With over 5,600 children's and young adult books published each year, you have quite the choice in finding something to read. Given the range of genres and reading levels available, how can teachers and parents help a young person find the right book? Start out by assessing the books you know and already may have available...

Peruse your classroom bookshelves to find favorite books that you may have forgotten.
You may even want to reorganize the books on your shelves by genre, author, topic, copyright date, etc.

Explore the available materials in your school or local public library.
- Ask the librarian where new books are featured.
- Examine a couple of books on the shelf from different sections of the library each week. Flip through the books and assess their ability to spark your students' interests. Do not feel like you need to limit your explorations to the young people's portion of the library!

There are hundreds of awards given to books annually.
Some of the most prestigious awards given to authors and illustrators of children's and young adult fiction are:

1) Caldecott Medal
2) Newberry Medal
3) Coretta Scott King Award
4) Pura Belpre Award

Click here for lists of the thousands of award winning books available!