Try it out! Search for your picture book.
What information are you seeing about the book? Is it high quality?
Reading Levels
There's quite a bit to consider when evaluating children's literature. All the usual criteria for good quality material applies, the same as you'd see in academic research: authorship, publishers, accuracy and so on are still important. But the age level and developmental appropriateness both come into play here, too! You need to make sure it's going to work for the grade you're placed in.
A great resource for evaluating age levels is the Children's Literature Comprehensive Database. This database compiles ALL of the children's literature out there... even beyond the Teaching Materials Center! It's a great resource for making sure the books you pick are on level.
Reviews
The Children's Literature Database also compiles book reviews. These reviews are written by experts: teachers, librarians, and other professionals who work in the field with children's literature. These reviews are often published in many different places, such as various magazines, journals, and online review sources. What's great about the Children's Literature Database is that it compiles reviews from several different sources all in one place!
Why are reviews so important? The experts take a close look at these books and give their professional advice. They've seen a lot of books and know the criteria to look for. They can tell you whether or not a book is recommended, and why (or why not). It's another way to find out if a book is good quality.
You can also learn a lot about a book's contents from the reviews! It's like a sneak preview or movie trailer for books. This means you can find out whether or not the book is relevant, and a little of what it's about, before you even pull it from the shelf. This is especially helpful if you have limited time or access to the collection.
Connecting to our Collection
The CLCD is a comprehensive database, just like it says in the name! It searches ALL the children's literature that's out there, beyond the TMC. If you'd like to just see what we have available, you can narrow your search to ONLY show what's in the TMC.
Follow these steps to narrow down your search to the TMC:
Anytime you see a heart icon next to a title, that means that we have it in our collection!
When you find a book that interests you:
