ABOUT ME

          I'm Amanda Smith, a graduate student at the University of North Texas currently working on my Masters in Library Sciences. In my course of study I'm learning how to evaluate the quality of literature that may be present in school library collections. I have developed this blog to showcase my learning and share my professional analysis of children's and young adult's literature.

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          What makes a book good? This is a question many have contemplated. Some would say that it simply comes down to if you enjoy the book or not and while that may be an answer that would satisfy most it is always surprising when someone’s favorite book ends up disliked by others. Personal taste may not be enough to judge if a book is of high quality since there are so many varying opinions and preferences in reading materials. People are just too unique. Some love the world of fiction because it provides a chance to engage our imaginations while others prefer only non-fiction to learn about the world and stay connected to realism.

            So, there must be some other way to measure whether a book is good or not. Something that all books have are literary elements that can be critiqued. These elements include style and language, character, plot, pacing, setting, tension, mood, tone, point of view, theme, accuracy, illustrations, design and layout. “Of the 13 components listed, three provide most of the information for judging the quality of fiction: style and language, character and plot” (Young, Bryan, Jacobs & Tunnell).

            This book blog is an exercise in analyzing youth literature based on these literary components.  It contains 10 blogs about books for children and 5 blogs about books for young adults. As this aspiring librarian works to consider what is best for her future patrons while resisting the temptation to self-censorship, I hope you will come to find that while not every book might suit our personal tastes, and that there may be elements that might ruffle our feathers, we must fairly judge books.

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Young, T. A., Bryan, G., Jacobs, J. S., Tunnell, M. O. (2020) Children's literature briefly. (7th ed.) Pearson Education.