Focus on Children’s and Young Adult Literature:
Recommended Reading Archives

Books

Click on a title to find a detailed description, and to browse contents and sample chapters.

Developing Critical Awareness at the Middle Level, by Holly Johnson and Lauren Freedman

Getting Beyond “I Like the Book”, by Vivian Vasquez

Articles

In addition to regular reviews of children’s books, The Reading Teacher routinely includes articles about using literature in the preschool, primary, elementary, and middle level classroom. Some recent highlights:

“Personal response and social responsibility,” by Janice Hartwick Dressel (May 2005; vol. 58, no. 8)

“Bringing Together Fictional and Informational Texts to Improve Comprehension,” by Jennifer Soalt (April 2005; vol. 58, no. 7)

“Reading literature, reading text, reading the Internet,” by Linda B. Gambrell (March 2005; vol. 58, no. 6)

The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy features regular reviews of young adult literature; visit the archive, or find review columns in any online issue. Also available are these recent articles:

“‘It Would Be Fun to Do Again’,” by Joanne Gillespie (May 2005; vol. 48, no. 8)

“Development of empathetic responses with multicultural literature,” by Belinda Louie (April 2005; vol. 48, no. 7)

“Re-envisioning reading and writing through combined-text picture books,” by Deborah Dean and Sirpa Grierson (March 2005; vol. 48, no. 6)

“Using the picture book Thank You, Mr. Falker to understand struggling readers,” by Debby Zambo (March 2005; vol. 48, no. 6)

Selections from Reading Research Quarterly:

“Stripping for the wolf,” by Elizabeth Marshall (July/Aug./Sept. 2004; vol. 39, no. 3)

“Literature as experience or looking for facts,” by Lee Galda and Lauren Aimonette Liang (April/May/June 2003; vol. 38, no. 2)

“Patterns of discourse in two kinds of literature discussion,” by Clark A. Chinn, Richard C. Anderson, and Martha A. Waggoner (Oct./Nov./Dec. 2001; vol. 36, no. 4)

“Exploring the intergenerational dialogue journal discussion of a multicultural young adult novel,” by Thomas W. Bean and Nicole Rigoni (July/Aug./Sept. 2001; vol. 36, no. 3)

“Response to literature as a cultural activity,” by Lee Galda and Richard Beach (Jan./Feb./March 2001; vol. 36, no. 1)  FREE!

“Children’s literature and reading instruction,” by Miriam G. Martinez and Lea M. McGee (Jan./Feb./March 2000; vol. 35, no. 1)

Freely available from the e-journal Reading Online:

“Children’s literature in teacher-preparation programs,” by Allison K. Hoewisch (Feb. 2000)

“Engaging critical reader response to literature through process drama,” by Margery Hertzberg (June 2003)

“Exploring Canadian identity through Canadian children’s literature,” by Sylvia Pantaleo (Sept. 2001)

“Learning to use diverse children’s literature in the classroom,” by Stacey Leftwich (Sept. 2002)

“Literature discussion in cyberspace,” by T. DeVere Wolsey (Jan. 2004)

“Research on children’s literature,” by Lee Galda, Gwynne Ellen Ash, and Bernice E. Cullinan (April 2001)

Sample articles from IRA’s membership newspaper, Reading Today:

“Optimizing author visits,” by Margriet Ruurs (April/May 2005) FREE!

“World celebrates Hans Christian Andersen bicentennial,” (April/May 2005) FREE!