REVIEWING CHILDRENS BOOKS - A CONTENT-ANALYSIS

With nearly five thousand children's books published each year, librar ians have become dependent on reviews to guide them in the purchasing of juvenile titles. The purpose of this study is to determine the adeq uacy of reviews of children's books in the six most utilized reviewing journals. Two coding sheets are used to gather and analyze the data i n relation to the extent of the coverage and content of 599 reviews of Notable Children's Books lists during 1994-96. The findings are compa red with earlier studies, with some noteworthy changes including incre ases in both evaluative comments and the attention paid to illustratio ns. School Library Journal is found to provide the most complete bibli ographic and ordering information. However, great variation in the ade quacy of the content of the reviews continues to exist. As in earlier studies, this research indicates that no single journal provides all t he information that librarians need.