books4yourkids is on an indefinite hiatus, but there are over 2,750 reviews of children’s, young adult (and even a few adult) books to help you find the right book for the right hands.
In 2008, while I was working as a children’s bookseller at Barnes & Noble and parenting three young readers, I started this book review blog. I had already been a bookseller for thirteen years and loved talking books with customers of all ages. As I found myself increasingly helping parents of children reading well above their grade level find age appropriate books, I realized I had experience and insight to share and this website was launched.
I left bookselling to work as an assistant to a literary agent representing many of the great children’s authors and illustrators publishing today, and in 2014 I embarked on a new job as an elementary school library technician. The student population at the school I worked at was both 80% Latinx and from low socioeconomic status households, with the majority of students reading below grade level. Working with these students fueled my drive for sharing my love of reading and ignited a passion for ensuring representation and diversity on the shelves of my library.
The pandemic has initiated many changes in my life and now, for the first time in almost 30 years, I am not working with children’s books or children, experiences that informed my book reviews. In light of this, I have decided to take a break from reviewing children’s books, but I hope you’ll continue to find this website a resource.
Links to pages and labels you might find helpful:
How to Choose Age Appropriate Books for Advanced Readers
A Quick Guide to Determining the Reading Level of a Book
Reviews by Reading Level & Genre
Working with books as a bookseller and librarian, I love organizing and grouping titles and created myriad labels for each review. These labels can be found at the bottom of each review and clicking on them will show you all the books in that category. You can also click on the menu bars in the upper left of the header to see all the labels, listed by frequency. Or, if you are a visual person like me, visit PINTEREST where I have 25+ boards grouping books by genre, topic and age. The list below represents just a fraction of labels attached to reviews.
- Animals as Characters
- Armchair Traveling
- Award Winner
- Biographies
- Black History & Black Authors & Illustrators
- Bridge Chapter Books
- Good Fantasy, Harmless Bad Guys
- Graphic Novels
- Historical Fiction
- Latinx & Chicanx History & Latinx & Chicanx Authors & Illustrators
- Mystery
- Social Emotional Learning
- Social Activism
- Social Justice
- Verse Novel
Thank you for being here – past, present and future. I’ve enjoyed having a place to share and am eternally happy to know it helped others!
Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.
Katherine Patterson – author of Newbery winners Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob I Have Loved and the 2010-2011 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.
December 20, 2021 at 05:12AM Tanya
