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Children's & Young Adult Literature

Categories and Genres

The following are genres or categories of literature for assignments in EDUINDP334 Children's Literature and Language Arts: Ages 3 Through 8 and ELEMMID362 Children's Literature.

Try these starting searches. Expand the search to all UW System Libraries. Collect Subject headings of books that are promising, and incorporate those in a new search.

ABC or Alphabet Books

alphabet AND ("juvenile fiction" OR "picture books" OR "alphabet book")

Counting Books

numbers AND ("juvenile fiction" OR "picture books" OR "counting book")

Biography

STRATEGY 1: Browse the Collection
  1. Go to the Library, 2nd floor. Visit the Curriculum Collection Non-Fiction section
  2. Go to the 921 call numbers. They are organized alphabetically by the person's last name.
STRATEGY 2: For grades 4 and below, try this:
  1. Go to the Library Home Page
  2. Type biography, then Search
  3. REFINE results by Location: Curriculum Collection Easy

Chapter Books

Begin with your course textbook, especially the booklists found in at the end of each chapter. You will also find some examples on the class Chapter Books handout. 

STRATEGY 1: Walk to the Easy Book section in the Curriculum Collection on 2nd floor. Look for books that are 40-100 pages, usually smaller format books - not picture books. 

STRATEGY 2: Look at the CCBC Choices for the previous years. Try this search first. You may also browse the CCBC Choices booklet. Open the document/publication to the chapter "Books for Newly Independent Readers." These will often be chapter books.

Note: Look at the section in your textbook about transitional books. There is a list of examples in the appendix. According to your textbook, these "lie somewhere between picture books and full-length novels"(p. 105). Characteristics listed include:

  • uncomplicated writing style and vocabulary
  • illustrations on about every third page
  • chapters
  • enlarged print
  • average length of about 100 pages (p. 105)

   

STRATEGY 3: Go to this TeachingBooks link for 1000's to choose from, along with teaching resources!

STRATEGY 4: Use Children's Literature Comprehensive Database to find chapter books in our collections.

 play video button This video walks you through the steps below:

  1. Go to Children's Literature Comprehensive Database
  2. And log in with your UWW Net-ID
  3. Type “chapter books” in the search
  4. Select the limiters for
    • Word Search Criteria: select exact phrase
    • Grade: check Kindergarten, Grade 1, and other grades if you like
    • Awards and Honors: check this as you will be more likely to find these in UW libraries
  5. Tap the search button
  6. Tap the titles of books of interest
  7. Tap the Check the Library Catalog link in small print to see if the book is in the UWW library, or to request it via UW Request:

Digitial Books: Audiobooks and Ebooks

child reading with an e-reader
Audiobooks

OPTION 1: Check out these Weston Woods published audiobooks in the Library collection. They are in the DVD collection but they are audiobooks!

"Weston Woods" audiobooks

OPTION 2:  Tap or copy/paste this search in Research@UWW, then limit to Resource Type = Audio: 

"children's fiction" OR "children's stories"

Ebooks

Visit the E-books for Elementary, Middle & Secondary School tab on this same page.

Challenged, Banned, and Censored books

STRATEGY 1: Visit American Library Association (ALA) Frequently Challenged Books List, then search for the titles in Research@UWW

STRATEGY 2: Check out any of the following books. Each includes a list of banned books, summary, and reason for challenge or censorship.

Graphic Novels

Begin with your course textbook, especially the booklists found in at the end of each chapter.  

There are many ways to find these in Research@UWW.

Step 1, Tap this search:

("graphic novels" OR "comic books") AND juvenile

You may need to copy/paste the search in Research@UWW if the link does not work properly.

Step 2, Try both of these strategies as well:

  • REFINE YOUR RESULTS to Curriculum Collection Easy Books:
  • Use the Filters for GENRE, such as "comic books, juvenile" or "graphic novels, juvenile"

Historical Fiction

STRATEGY 1: Use the Catalog, Research@UWW
  1. Start at the Library Home page
  2. Select dropdown: Books, Media & More (UW Whitewater)
  3. Use the Advanced Search. Change Any Field to Subject.
  4. Type: history AND fiction
  5. Refine Results: Scroll to Location and check either or both locations:

        6. Refine Results: Scroll to the Genre section and check "biographical fiction", "historical fiction" and other relevant genres.

        7. Look at the Genre and Subject headings to make sure it is historical fiction.

STRATEGY 2: Use Novelist K-8

Novelist is a Badgerlink database, available to Wisconsin residents. Public libraries and schools use it to help patrons find book titles they might want to read. Any one can use this! You can access it through Badgerlink.com, but for now:

  1. Go to Novelist K-8
  2. At top, Click Browse By and select Realistic Fiction or Fantasy

Informational Text

STRATEGY 1: Browse the Collection

Go to the Library, 2nd floor. Visit the Curriculum Collection Non-Fiction section

STRATEGY 2: Search for a topic

For grades 4 and above, try this:

  1. Go to the Library Home Page
  2. Type a simple topic term (e.g. pollution; women; ferrets; sports)
  3. REFINE results by Location: Curriculum Collection Non-fiction

For grades 4 and below, try this:

  1. Go to the Library Home Page
  2. Type a simple topic term (e.g. pollution; women; ferrets; sports), and add AND literature
    1. For example: dogs AND literature
  3. REFINE results by Location: Curriculum Collection Easy

Modern Fantasy

Modern fantasy can take place in alternative worlds or the world we know. "...fantasy includes stories of magic, ghosts, talking animals and superhuman heroes, of time travel, hallucinations and dreams" (Grenby, 2014, p.144). 

Grenby, M. (2014). Children's Literature. United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.

Multicultural Literature

Begin with your course textbook, especially the booklists found in at the end of each chapter.  

Search Research@UWW and search for a specific cultural group or nationality. FILTER your results by location.

The books below contain listings of children's books by country. 

Many other reference books in the PN1009 section will contain indexes of titles by country. Search the index by country name or search for "Foreign lands", for example "Foreign lands - Mexico."

Poetry

Begin with your course textbook, especially the booklists found in at the end of each chapter.  

Strategy 1: Go the the Non-Fiction section, and browse, starting with call numbers 811

Strategy 2: Some poetry books are in the Easy Book section. Try this search and REFINE by location:

"children's poetry" AND "picture books"

Postmodern Picture Books 

Postmodern picture books are often characterized by: 

  • A nonlinear story progression
  • A self-awareness that speaks directly to the reader, that is, this book knows it’s a book.
  • Reader participation 

Realistic Fiction

Novelist allows filtering by genre and age. 

  1. Tap the search below, then
  2. Locate titles of interest, then find out whether the book is in UW-W Andersen Library by searching for the title in Research@UWW.

Traditional Literature: folklore, fables, legends, myths, and fairy tales

Begin with your course textbook, especially the booklists found in at the end of each chapter.  

  • You can find many of these in the Non-fiction 398 section. 
  • Tap this search and then filter to both the Curriculum Collection Easy Books and Nonfiction Books

"fairy tales" OR legends OR myth* OR folktales OR "folk tales"

Here's another search:

  1. Follow the link below which will take you to an active Research@UWW search. 
  2. Under Refine by, find the Location category.
  3. Click View More.
  4. Limit to Curriculum Collection Easy.
  5. Browse the list. What cultures and nations do you see? Add a country, nationality or culture name to your search like this:

(folklore OR "folk tale" OR folktale) AND Chile


Many other reference books in the PN1009 section will contain indexes of titles by country. Search the index by country name or search for "Foreign lands", for example "Foreign lands - Mexico."

Visual / Multimodal texts

The International Reading Association (ILA) describes these as "ensemble" texts, which present "information across a variety of modes including visual images, design elements, written language, and other semiotic resources to convey meaning and engage readers" (para. 1). There is no subject heading or genre filter in online catalogs, so...

Begin with your course textbook, especially the booklists found in at the end of each chapter.  

Find additional examples of multimodal texts mentioned in this blog from the Univ of Brighton College of Education as well as in the article mentioned above from the ILA. 

Goodreads can be a potential source, but you must verify that the selections truly fit the multimodal description in your textbook.

Wordless Picture Books

"stories without words" 

Charlotte Zolotow Award Winner

STRATEGY 1: Tap this Research@UWW search to see what is available at UW-Whitewater. 

zolotow AND (award OR honor)

STRATEGY 2: Not all books have the award identified in the catalog, so you will also want to visit the CCBC book list, and then look for titles in Research@UWW.

Follow the Education Librarian's Pinterest Boards for another way to browse recent additions to our children's collections.