Madeleine Clark Wallace Library: Education: Find Children's and Young Adult Books

Instruction & Assessment Librarian

Stella Hudson (she/her)

she/her

Email Me

Contact:

Wallace Library G35 (Periodicals Level near the ground level entrance and the ITSS help desk)

(508) 286-3732

Subjects: Criminology

Choosing High Quality Children's Literature

This book is written for teachers and parents of young children to help them select the very best in children's literature. Written by practicing teachers in a graduate children's literature class at Ashland University, the book contains ten chapters covering eight genres of children's literature, picture book illustrations, and children's book awards.

Finding Children's and Young Adult Books in the Library

Children's and young adult books are located in the PZ range (under the subject of "juvenile belles lettres" or juvenile literature) on our Stacks Level. Within the PZ range, the books are arranged based on what type of book it is: graphic novel, traditional fairy tale, realistic animal stories, braille and sign language books, books written in more than one language, etc.

To find a book based on the character, use recommended reading lists to identify what books you want to find, then use our catalog to see if Wheaton or HELIN, a group of area libraries of which we are a part, have the book in our collections.

Recommended Book Lists

Cooperative Children's Book Center: Picture Books Featuring Multiracial Families This is a listing of picture books featuring interracial families, updated annually.
Diverse Book Finder A collection of children's picture books featuring Black and Indigenous people and People of Color (BIPOC) is available to the public. You can use the Search Tool to find titles.
Teaching for Change Book Lists by Theme Here are more than 60 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators.
We Need Diverse Books: Where to Find Lists WE'VE COMPILED THE FOLLOWING LIST OF SITES THAT OFFER RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DIVERSE TITLES. OUR LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE, AND WE WELCOME SUGGESTIONS OF CURRENT, ACTIVE SITES THAT PROVIDE DIVERSE BOOK LISTS.

IBBY Collection for Young People with Disabilites Catalogs listing the outstanding examples of books for and about young people with disabilities. Published odd years since 1997.
IRIS Center Children's Books: Portrayal of People with Disabillities Curated in conjunction with Mary Anne Prater, the author or co-author of seven books and dozens of academic journal articles on teaching students with developmental difficulties as well as special and general education topics, this search tool contains information and synopses of children’s and young adult literature about or having to do with people with disabilities. This information includes the name of the author and illustrator, year of publication, publisher, appropriate grade level, and award status.
Queer Books for Teens: Books with Disabled Main Characters List of YA books with disabled main characters.
Reading Rockets: Books About Kids Who Find Reading Hard For some kids, reading isn't easy. They might have dyslexia, a learning disability, or just learn differently. Because it helps to know you're not alone, we've gathered together a list of recommended children's books for kids that feature characters of different strengths and abilities who've found they don't read like everyone else.
Reading Rockets: Celebrating Kids that Learn Differently None of us look just the same and we each have our own special interests. That's true of how we learn, too. Everyone has their own style and things that they do particularly well. As children prepare to go to school, it's a good time to remember there are various ways of learning, that achievements are wide-ranging, and that learning takes place at different rates. On the pages of these books, meet memorable characters with special ways of learning and dealing with school.
Reading Rockets: Children's Books Featuring Characters with Autism or Asperger's Understanding autism can begin with stories about a child, sibling, friend, and classmate (and even a kid detective!) with autism or Asperger syndrome. This collection includes picture books for elementary age children and their families as well as chapter books for middle school readers.

Cooperative Children's Book Center: LGBTQ Lives in Chidlren's and Young Adult Books This bibliography was designed to provide librarians, teachers, parents and others with suggested books for children and teens that provide information about or reflect the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning (GLBTQ) youth and gay- or lesbian-parented families.
Queer Books for Teens: Best of Lists Best of lists of LGBTQ fiction published for teens since 2000.
The Rainbow Book List The List, developed by the GLBT Round Table of the American Library Association, is a curated bibliography highlighting books with significant gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning content, aimed at children and youth from birth to age 18.
Stanford Libraries: Children's Books with an LGBTQ Theme This guide lists children's books and young adult literature in Cubberley Education Library by or about lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender or queer people.

Carol Hurst's Children's Literature by Theme The subjects listed here each have one or more pages on this site with information such as: related children's books, activities, related articles and links to other sites on the web. If you don't find your subject listed here check the Expanded Table of Contents for other places it may be mentioned on this site.
Cooperative Children's Book Center: Complete List of all Bibliographies All bibliographies created by the CCBC of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reading Rockets: Themed Booklists Browse these book lists selected for kids up to 9 years old, which focus on new titles and emphasize quality.
The Reading Tub: Book Lists by Theme One of the easiest ways to engage kids in reading is to share activities and stories on subjects they are already interested in. When you’re asked to find a book about subject X, a book list can be a helpful tool. They can make it easy to find some tried-and-true books on a given subject. Collectively, the links below offer you ideas for just about every subject imaginable.

ALSC Notable Children's Books (Association for Library Service to Children) Each year a committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) identifies the best of the best in children's books. According to the Notables Criteria, "notable" is defined as: Worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding. As applied to children's books, notable should be thought to include books of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry and pictures for all age levels (birth through age 14) that reflect and encourage children's interests in exemplary ways.
Database of Award Winning Children's Literature (DAWCL) DAWCL has over 14,000 records from 158 awards across six English-speaking countries (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, and Ireland). Click the link Explanation of Awards above to see a list of awards, their countries, and a brief explanation. Each book is indexed to some degree so users can find it using the form search or the keyword search.
YALSA Book Finder (Young Adult Library Services Association) Search 4,000+ books, audiobooks, and films from YALSA's book awards and book lists.

Finding Children's Books Online

Use these sources to find children's books freely available online. You can filter by language, level, categories, etc. Books are available various formats including PDF, Readalong, and ebook.

Book Dash Book Dash books are made by a team of three creative professionals: a writer, an illustrator and a designer, working together with an editor and a team of facilitators. Everyone volunteers their expertise during a 12-hour book-making event (called a Book Dash) to create beautiful, African storybooks for all to read and enjoy.
Global Digital Library The Global Digital Library (GDL) collects existing high quality open educational reading resources, and makes them available on web, mobile and for print.
StoryWeaver StoryWeaver is a digital repository of multilingual stories for children from Pratham Books.

Education