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From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books

From Cover To Coveris a fresh, up-to-date look at some of the best examples of children’s literature today, and also includes practical advice on how to write clearly articulated, reasoned opinions so that others can learn about books they have not yet read.

It includes:

• a short explanation of the process of making a children’s book from manuscript to final bound book
• a description of the importance of the many different parts of a book (jacket flaps, title page, copyright, Cataloging-in-Publication information, etc.)
• six thought-provoking chapters that explain how ot think about and critically evaluate several different genres of children’s books:
  books of information
  • traditional literature (myths, legends, tall tales, folktales)
  • poetry, verse, rhymes, and songs
  • picture books
  • easy readers and transitional books
  • fiction
• a concluding chapter on how to write reviews that are both descriptive and analytical

From Cover To Cover is an invaluable resource for all professionals who wish to write book evaluations that go beyond a simple personal response.

This definitive guide to reviewing children’s books makes it effortless for parents, teachers, librarians, children’s literature students and general readers who are interested in becoming children’s book reviewers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a children’s book. An authoritative reviewer in her own right, Kathleen Horning provides practical guidelines for reading critically, evaluating an initial response, answering questions raised during the first reading, putting a response into words, balancing description with criticism, and writing reviews for a particular audience.
Customer Review: A better subtitle would be understanding children’s books
I get paid for writing reviews of children’s books. Most of the books that I’m asked to review are art instruction books or picture books because I also am a freelance artist. I thought that I should read this book to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. However, the title is misleading. It is not really a book about “Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books”. A better title would be understanding children’s books. Only the last chapter in the book deals with reviewing children’s books and that is the shortest chapter. Most of the book is comprised of a comprehensive overview of the different categories of children’s books (non-fiction, poetry, picture, easy readers, transitional and fiction). If I had the opportunity to browse through this book in a regular bookstore, it would have stayed on the shelf.
Customer Review: Good book, a bit overstated
First let me say that this is a good book, I am glad that I purchased it. It codifies many of the characteristics of a quality children’s book, and helps writers and reviewers exercise better critical judgment.

However, the author sometimes “puts a bit too fine a point on it,” as a Brit might say. There is a section on the layout of early readers and transitional books which describes a specific target number of words per line, lines per page, text size, etc. I found this section quite helpful overall, and I specified changes to our style guide after reading it. But as useful as this material is, I felt the author’s attempt to distinguish numbers of words per line between level 1, level 2 and level 3 early reader books was taking the process a bit too far.

Overall, this is a minor issue. As other reviewers have mentioned, writers will find value in the detailed descriptions of how children learn to read, how they react to themes, styles and plots (and how to recognize weakness in each), and how to target different age groups. Indeed, this is the only book I have found with detailed and usable information on these points.

Summary: Buy it if you are a creator or reviewer of children’s books.

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