After reviewing many readers' advisory sites for kids, I have narrowed down three excellent choices. Of course, a reader could always use Goodreads.com, which seems to have the most comprehensive collection of books and reviews for adults and children. But, if you want a more kid-friendly online atmosphere, give these three sites a try!
ReadKiddoRead: A Father’s Passion to Get His Son Loving Reading
http://www.ReadKiddoRead.com
ReadKiddoRead.com is James Patterson’s website of books kids will love. He has broken his website into four age brackets, in order to best tailor the readers’ advisory service. In each age bracket, books are broken further into genres of fantasy and other worlds, real world fiction, action/adventure/mystery, and just the facts (nonfiction). With colored photographs of the books’ covers, kids or parents can browse through to find a book that looks interesting or that they have already read and loved. By clicking on more, the reader is brought to a page with dozens of titles in that genre. The cover and a brief synopsis are provided to entice the reader. If the reader wants to know more about a particular book, including number of pages, a longer description, and bibliographic information, he or she just needs to click "more." On the book’s specific page, there is a rather extensive list of book-alikes to try out.
This site is unlike other blogs or websites that promote books to children. The fourteen reviewers that write the descriptions and suggest the book-alikes are reputable reviewers of children’s literature. One can read their short biographies on the site. The descriptions are thorough and enticing, creating an excitement about the book. There is a wide variety of literature reviewed on the site, though it is not comprehensive. It is an excellent site to visit when you’ve run out of good book recommendations and are looking for something new. Many of the titles have recent copyrights, keeping the collection up-to-date, while still including some timeless classics.
Younger kids would have difficulty accessing this site on their own. It is definitely geared toward middle grade readers or adults. Also, young readers may lose interest in this website without many interactive components.
BookWink: An Interactive RA for Kids
http://www.BookWink.com
ReadKiddoRead.com is James Patterson’s website of books kids will love. He has broken his website into four age brackets, in order to best tailor the readers’ advisory service. In each age bracket, books are broken further into genres of fantasy and other worlds, real world fiction, action/adventure/mystery, and just the facts (nonfiction). With colored photographs of the books’ covers, kids or parents can browse through to find a book that looks interesting or that they have already read and loved. By clicking on more, the reader is brought to a page with dozens of titles in that genre. The cover and a brief synopsis are provided to entice the reader. If the reader wants to know more about a particular book, including number of pages, a longer description, and bibliographic information, he or she just needs to click "more." On the book’s specific page, there is a rather extensive list of book-alikes to try out.
This site is unlike other blogs or websites that promote books to children. The fourteen reviewers that write the descriptions and suggest the book-alikes are reputable reviewers of children’s literature. One can read their short biographies on the site. The descriptions are thorough and enticing, creating an excitement about the book. There is a wide variety of literature reviewed on the site, though it is not comprehensive. It is an excellent site to visit when you’ve run out of good book recommendations and are looking for something new. Many of the titles have recent copyrights, keeping the collection up-to-date, while still including some timeless classics.
Younger kids would have difficulty accessing this site on their own. It is definitely geared toward middle grade readers or adults. Also, young readers may lose interest in this website without many interactive components.
BookWink: An Interactive RA for Kids
http://www.BookWink.com
Reputable reviewer Sonja Cole creates an interactive website
of book reviews, both in print and in video.
She has designed the website to search by title, author, grade level, or
subject. The site states that they are
constantly adding books, so the site is constantly developing.
BookWink is created for kids in 3rd through 8th grade, or adults who are assisting readers in this age range. Very brief descriptions are provided for the books, but a link to Amazon.com is provided for every book on the site. On Amazon, the reader can find out more information, read customer reviews, and even find book-alikes. From the BookWink site, kids can find books that are in a similar subject, but book-alikes are not provided for each individual title.
Kids will love the ability to watch a book talk on a variety of books Cole reviews. She keeps the video clips around 3 minutes in length in order to tell enough about the book, but not lose the interest of the kids watching it. At times in her video book talks she will talk about other books that remind her of the feature book, but these book-alikes are not written down anywhere, requiring active listening skills.
BookWink is created for kids in 3rd through 8th grade, or adults who are assisting readers in this age range. Very brief descriptions are provided for the books, but a link to Amazon.com is provided for every book on the site. On Amazon, the reader can find out more information, read customer reviews, and even find book-alikes. From the BookWink site, kids can find books that are in a similar subject, but book-alikes are not provided for each individual title.
Kids will love the ability to watch a book talk on a variety of books Cole reviews. She keeps the video clips around 3 minutes in length in order to tell enough about the book, but not lose the interest of the kids watching it. At times in her video book talks she will talk about other books that remind her of the feature book, but these book-alikes are not written down anywhere, requiring active listening skills.
Videos on the website require QuickTime in order to view
them. Computers and search engines must
be compatible with QuickTime in order to get the full experience out of this
website.
GuysRead: Lists of Books Guys Have Recommended
http://www.GuysRead.com
GuysRead: Lists of Books Guys Have Recommended
http://www.GuysRead.com
Intended to be a highly engaging list of boys books, GuysRead.com provides many books in a variety of subjects that boys especially like. However, the book titles are not accompanied by any description of the book. Essentially the site is asking for readers to judge the book by the title and the cover. However, it does provide a detailed list of books that have been recommended by guys themselves. If used in conjunction with another site that provides descriptions, readers can decipher between the books they do and do not want to read.
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