Professional Development/Teaching with Children'sLliterature
Blogs and Listservs
Blogs
The Joy of Children's Literature
A blog that serves as a resource for the children's literature textbook The Joy of Children's Literature.
Fuse Number 8
This blog features daily book reviews of various types of children's literature. The blogger works in New York City at the Public Library. There are related (and non related) links included on the page.
A Year of Reading
Experienced teachers, Mary Lee and Franki post entries about teaching literature. They are trying to read as many books as possible this year. hopfeully reading the Newberry winner. This blog has a great list of "100 cool teachers in children's literature" and links to other blogs.
Big A little a
Reviews by the blogger are posted on this blog along with useful information related to children's literature, and great ideas from other blogs about the same subject.
Booktalking with the Book Dragon
The postings on this blog include book reviews by the blogger, information about various authors and books, and some "booktalking". A list of librarians from children's books are listed on this blog, as well as a list of books to teach children about the library.
Chicken Spaghetti
Funny name for a blog, but it has some great content. The blogger posts some good information about upcoming events in children's literature and gives links to author and illustrator websites.
The Children's Literature Book Club
The majority of the postings are book reviews by the blogger. Other members of the "club" have their own blogs, links for which are provided on this blog.
Confessions of a Bibliovore
This blogger is a librarian who posts mostly book reviews, provides links to other blogs, and random selections from her library on Library Thing.
Jen Robinson's Book Page
This is a great blog about children's literature. There are many, many book reviews posted. Links to recent book reviews, books on raising readers, programs that focus on giving books to children. other children's literacy sites, and many other categories can be found on this blog. The blogger also gives suggestions of children's (and young adult) books that adults would enjoy.
The Fire Escape: Books Between Cultures
This blogger was born in India, immigrated to the United States with her family, and now writes books and short stories for young readers. There is a link to her website, which provides teens, teachers, and parents with information about "juggling two cultures". This is a great blog and website for any one interested in using multicultural literature.
Oz and Ends
This blog's description states that it is about fantasy for young readers, but focuses on children's literature as a whole. The entries are book reviews and other children's literature related topics, and also provides links to other sites of interest.
Poetry for Children
A great resources for poetry, this blog includes great ideas about using poetry in classrooms. The blogger gives recommendations for collections and books of poetry, and most of the entries include a poem or two.
Read Roger
This blogger is an editor of the Horn Book, Inc. He discusses quality children's literature information on his postings and addresses happenings in the children's literature world.
Shen's Blog
This is a multicultural children's literature blog. Shen's Books is a "publisher and resource for children's books that promote cultural understanding". The postings are about multicultural books, many published in other countries. The links on this blog include author and illustrator websites and blogs. This is a great place to go to develop your understanding of truly multicultural children's literature.
Sheryl McFarlane's Book Blog
The author of this blog is from Canada, and a lover of children's books. She includes great book reviews of many picturebooks, giving enough detail to build your own understanding of the book before you even read it. The links she includes are websites of authors she has reviewed and other children's literature websites.
The Inter-Galactic Playground
This is a science-fiction blog. There are book summaries and some reviews, even some "spoilers". Links to science fiction review sites, other children's literature sites, and general sites related to children (under the headings "children and play" and "children and cognition") are found on this blog as well.
The Moving Castle
Named from a Diana Wynne Jone's book, Howl's Moving Castle, this blog features entries about popular children's books. The description of the blog is "Children's literature, film and culture... A castle full of books." The author provides a few related children's literature site links on the blog.
Listservs
Child_Lit- Theory and criticism of children's literature
This listserv is a discussion group for anyone that is interested in children's and young adult literature. It seems to be very focused on this and discussions about other topics are not to be discussed here.
LM_NET On the Web
This is a discussion group for school library media specialists. It offers worldwide subscription, and is open to anyone in the school library media field. Topics are those which would be relevant to media specialists in schools, and not necessarily for classroom teachers.
Bookwire
This is an alphabetical list of many different listservs which focus on all literature. The two dealing with children's literature are: "Childlit" and "Kidlit-1".
