Criteria for reviewing children's books

More than 5,000 juvenile books are published each year. For this reason sch ool and children's librarians depend on reviews to assist them with their s election responsibilities. Through a review,: professional literature, we i dentified to criteria that librarians, authors, editors, ann publishers tho ught were important to include in a book review. Using content analysis, we applied the criteria to 152 reviews of 1996 Notable Books for Children in four journals commonly used by school and children's librarians. We found t hat although the journals include several of the criteria for quality book reviews, no single journal stood out as consistently providing all the crit eria. The findings can be used by children's books reviewers, librarians wi th the responsibility of selecting reviewing journals ann children's books, and researchers interested in further studies to help determine the criter ia needed for quality book reviews.