http://hbook.com
For this week, I chose to look at the Horn Book (online version) and was NOT disappointed!!! Let me begin by saying that this is my favorite resource that I have looked at so far. This resource has been created to provide parents, teachers, and librarians (public and school) with recommendations for good children's and YA literature (their mission statement). I chose it because it was on the list and had been discussed in class-it sounded interesting.
I spent a lot of time browsing this site! I read information on choosing books which included reviews and author's questions; using books for libraries (this focused on public libraries but was still full of excellent information!); under creating books I watched the making of the Freight Train app (super cool!); and under the interview tab I selected 5 Questions with Roz Chast to preview.
My favorite articles were: What makes a good dystopian novel? And the making the Freight Train app. All of the articles I read were VERY helpful-there are a variety of book reviews, app reviews, and ideas for instruction. I enjoyed the author interviews and the publishing section as well. There was nothing on this site that appeared to be useless or lacking. It is very practical and I have bookmarked it to use in the future. I will absolutely use this with my students when it comes to purchasing, reviews, and educating myself.
I REALLY needed to read the article on dystopian literature. Right now I am struggling with YA fiction and this was excellent!! The article defined what dystopian literature is, the four criteria of what makes a good dystopian book, and then gave book reviews on good books. Reading this one article gave me the structure and a background knowledge of a genre that I don't know much about. I can take this knowledge and immediately apply it in our library-I like being able to use information NOW. I will continue to use this resource when I have questions, or just to keep up on what is out there. I also like how Horn Books has a clear mission and their entire site upholds their statement. I will continue to come back to this site and actually liked it more than School Library Journal.
No comments:
Post a Comment