Also of interest…

These are some of my personal favourite book-related sites, plus some that I thought would be useful to librarians but didn’t quite fit in elsewhere.

Spalding, T. (2005). LibraryThing. Retrieved May 23, 2012, from www.librarything.com

 

While the main purpose of the site is to “catalog your books online”, this incredible resource also has invaluable information about book characters, series, awards, authors, events, etc. LibraryThing’s social network includes an excellent “name that book” group for those vaguely remembered details to jog someone else’s memory. I’ve also enjoyed random features such as “members write book summaries in haiku form”.

 

 

Bookish. (2012). Retrieved May 23, 2012, from www.bookish.co.nz

 

Simultaneously searching more than 30 local and international book retail sites, Bookish provides a real-time price comparison in New Zealand dollars and including postage, listing the cheapest first and giving an indication of stock availablilty.

 

 

Search-cube. (n.d.). Retrieved May 23, 2012, from www.search-cube.com

 

“The visual search engine”. Powered by Google, this engine is particularly useful when a combination of images and video are likely to comprise the majority of a search result. Results are presented as large thumbnails on the faces of a cube, which the searcher can manipulate. Hovering over a thumbnail provides a zoomed image and brief information about the link.

 

 

ICDL Foundation. (n.d.). International children’s digital library. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

 

With the admirable goal of ultimately digitising examples of quality children’s literature from every culture and language, this site is a fun place to discover and read some more obscure books not available in local libraries. The ‘simple search’ allows for browsing the Library using graphics for age groups, length of books, content, and (my favourite!) the colour of the book’s cover!

 

 

Fiction reading and reviews for teenagers

Tearaway magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://tearaway.co.nz/category/reviews-2/book-reviews/

The review tab from the magazine’s main page leads to reviews of a mixture of music, books, and games, each showing a large cover image and a taster from the review. Reviews of teen fiction are thorough and often include the reviewer’s personal experience as well as suggestions for further reading. New Zealand authors are well-represented and a range of genre covered.

 

Teen blog. (2012). Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://www.wcl.govt.nz/blogs/teens/

 Updated several times a week, this blog features numerous reviews, which also routinely include first words and number of pages. In between, it includes teen eye-catchers such as “fashion Friday” and “Trailer Tuesday”. Other categories for reviews and posts include useful genre labels (e.g. “comedy”, “anime”, etc.) and intriguing content descriptors (e.g. “giant squid”, “exclusive academies for rich kids who form cliques” etc.).

Fiction reading and reviews for children

KidsReads. (2012). Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://www.kidsreads.com/

With author biographies and interviews supplementing masses of reviews, this site also includes brief synopses of selected titles about to be published. The site is designed to appeal to children, with changing displays and giveaways of some featured titles. I found the series information particularly useful, especially as it includes many picture book series as well as novels.

 

Scieszka, J. (n.d.). Guys read. Retrieved May 29, 2012, from http://www.guysread.com/

Promotes ‘the appeal of reading’ to guys, and does it in ways which appeal to guys: reviews and information are brief, and titles can be accessed through various paths e.g. recommendations from famous guys or through the intriguingly-titled category lists which change around each time the home page is refreshed. Definition of ‘reading’ explicitly broadened to include audio books and comics.

Reviews of literature and information resources for children and young people

A New Zealand website

Gill, M. & Orman, L. (Eds.). KidsBooksNZ. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://kidsbooksnz.blogspot.co.nz/

A blog updated with at least two new reviews almost every weekend, covering all types of books: fiction, non-fiction, and picture books. Review content often includes information about awards won or pending, other works by the same author or in the same genre, and what kind of reader (or teacher!) is likely to find the reviewed title appealing.    

An overseas website

Books for keeps. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/

With the magazine of the same name reviewing over 1000 titles per year, this site contains masses of well-written information about books, authors, and reading for children, and related issues. Content is readily searchable, with both simple and advanced options (which allow specification of date, reader age, genre, etc.) but the site is also a treat to browse.