Resources for Critical Reviews

Disclaimer: Not all of these resources provide critical reviews of every title they review. It is essential that school librarians develop their own cultural competence, read views and literature critically, and make collection development and literature integration decisions informed by intercultural knowledge and cultural sensitivity.

American Indians in Children's Literature

AICL was established in 2006 by Debbie Reese, Nambé Ówingeh. Her blog provides "critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society."

Batchelder Award

The Batchelder Award is sponsored by the Association of Library Service to Children. The award is given "to the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States." On the website, you will find current winners and honor books with annotations and previous award winners as well. 

Canadian Children's Book Awards

Starting with our nearest neighbor to the north, these awards are given annually in multiple categories, including the Prix Harry Black de l’album jeunesse Award for books in French geared to children ages 3 to 8.

Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA)

The CBCA selects award-winning books of high literacy and artistic quality annually. This link is to the 2018 awards.

La Bloga

La Bloga is the world's longest-established Chicana Chicano Latina Latino Literary Blog. Search this site by author's or illustrator's name.

Latinxs in Kid Lit

Book reviews on this site are organized by picturebooks and early readers, middle grade, and young adult books. The reviewers explore themes and topics within each of these three strands. Most reviews include curriculum connections.

Multicultural Children's Book Day

This page offers diversity book lists and activities for teachers and parents.

Notable Books for a Global Society (BBGS)

An initiative of the International Literacy Association (ILA), NBGS awards twenty-five outstanding children's trade books annually and is facilitated by the ILA Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group.

United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY): “Outstanding International Books”

In addition to book lists, you will find bookmarks that can support international books collection development and serve as support for cultural programming.

We Need Diverse Books

This page on the WNDB website offers links to book list resources. 

Worlds of Words (WOW): International Collection of Children’s and Adolescent Literature

WOW Review publishes critical book reviews in four issues each year. WOW Stories is an online peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles featuring vignettes written by classroom educators about children’s experiences reading and responding to literature. WOW Currents is a blog, which is facilitated by various members of the WOW Advisory Board. Another feature on the site, Authors Corner, shares news from authors and illustrators about their recent or upcoming titles that portray diverse cultures from around the world. My Take/Your Take: Book Dialogues is a conversation between two different reviewers who dig deep to discover and discuss cultural features of international and multicultural books for children and young adults.

 Globalizing the Common Core - Even though Texas does not follow the Common Core State Standards, these lists, organized by grade levels, will be useful to Texas school librarians and other educators.  These lists can support your global collection development as well as provide you with critically reviewed texts that can be integrated into your teaching.

"The overrepresentation of classics on the CCSS list of text complexity exemplars and many core reading lists does not reflect the cultural diversity of students’ lives and worlds and is problematic from many perspectives. Worlds of Words has developed global book lists of fiction and nonfiction books organized by grade level bands and complexity. These lists include books that can be paired with classic, well-known texts, as well as additional lists of recommended global fiction and nonfiction that connect K-12 students to global cultures."