Research Guides: Children's Literature: Websites, Listservs and Blogs

Websites

Art Passions
A great resource for the works of classic children's book illustrators.
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Explore this site and learn about the works of Arthur Rackham, Gustave Dore, William Morris, John Bauer, Aubrey Beardsley, Edmund Dulac, Virginia Frances Sterrett, Kay Nielsen, Adrienne Segur, Sulamith Wulfing, Warwick Goble, the Preraphaelites and others.
The Brown Bookshelf
The Brown Bookshelf is designed to increase awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers.
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site
"This is a collection of reviews of great books for kids, ideas of ways to use them in the classroom and collections of books and activities about particular subjects, curriculum areas, themes and professional topics."
Children's & Young Adult Literature Resources
Cynthia Leitich Smith's website is a portal into the world of literary trade books for children and young adults. It’s designed to serve young readers, teachers, librarians, child caregivers, undergraduate and graduate students, university professors, writers, and literature enthusiasts.
Children's Literature
Children’s Literature reviewers read and critically review thousands of books annually.
Children's Literature Association
"Encouraging high standards of criticism, scholarship, research, and teaching in children's literature."
Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) School of Education (SoE). A unique and vital gathering place for books, ideas, and expertise in the field of children's and young adult literature.
I.N.K.: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids
A group of some of the best nonfiction authors for children blog about how they practice their craft. They discuss research techniques, fact gathering and detective work. Discover how they find unusual tidbits, make the facts interesting and write something kids will love to read.
Vandergrift's Young Adult Literature Page
Kay Vandergrift was an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Information and Library Studies at Rutgers University. She retired in 2004 but her award winning website is still active and one of the best resources for children's literature.
Philip Nel's Website
Philip Nel is the Director of the Program in Children's Literature at Kansas State and is best known for his work on Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter. Good source for links to children's authors and many useful children's literature resources.
Vicki Cobb's Kid's Science Page
Vicki Cobb is the well-known author of more than eighty-five highly entertaining nonfiction books for children. This site contains her "We Dare You Videos" with science experiments kids can do at home.
KET K-12 Services
KET’s standards-based K-12 offerings are designed to help create effective learning environments for educators and students. They include instructional videos and interactives, face-to-face workshops, Online Campus courses, and professional development opportunities for educators.
International Children's Literature Websites:
Cynthia Leitich Smith: Children’s and Young Adult Book Resources
A project, funded under the European Commission's Culture 2000 program, that uses web technology to allow wider and more open access to images from collections of early children's books in Europe.
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It is hoped that by sharing these images and other resources with an international audience, the project will lay the foundations for a wider network of early children's book collections.
IRSCL: international Research Society for Children's Literature
An international organization established to support and promote research in the field of children's literature.
United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY)
USBBY serves as the U.S. national section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), which was founded to promote international understanding and good will through books for children and teenagers.
Asian American Curriculum Project, Inc.
This site's mission is to educate the public about the great diversity of the Asian American experience through the books that they distribute, thereby fostering cultural awareness and to educate Asian Americans about their own heritage.
Smithsonian Education
The central education website of the Smithsonian Institution. Educators will find lesson plans about history & culture, language arts, science, art & design, people & places. Make sure to check out the teaching resources highlighted in the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and Hispanic Heritage Month pages.
Africa Access
Founded in 1989 to help schools, public libraries, and parents improve the quality of their children's collection on Africa.
Africa Access Review, our online database, contains over 1000 annotations and reviews of children's books written by university professors, librarians, and teachers most of whom have lived in Africa and have graduate degrees in African Studies.

Listserves and Blogs

LISTSERV:

CCBC-Net is a listserv from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It encourages awareness and discussion of ideas and issues critical to literature for children and young adults. CCBC-Net members explore a wide range of topics in contemporary literature for youth, including multicultural literature, translated books, outstanding, and award-winning books, equity themes and topics, the book arts and book publishing, and more. Every month CCBC-Net focuses on a new topic or issue.

BLOGS:

There are innumerable Children's Literature blogs and choosing them is largely a matter of personal taste. A good place to start is the list of School Library Journal blogs. One of them, Elizabeth Bird's blog, A FUSE #8 PRODUCTION, which originally rose to popularity with it's "Hot Men of Children's Literature" postings and is now being closely followed for "The Top 100 Children's Novels Poll" is a good one to start with because of the extensive list of children's literature blogs she follows.