Reviewing children's books: A content analysis

With nearly five thousand children's books published each year, librarians have become dependent on reviews to guide them in the purchasing of juvenile titles. The purpose of this study is to determine the adequacy of reviews of children's books in the six most utilized reviewing journals. Two coding sheets are used to gather and analyze the data in relation to the extent of the coverage and content of 599 reviews of Notable Children's Books lists during 1994-96. The findings are compared with earlier studies, with some noteworthy changes including increases in both evaluative comments and the attention paid to illustrations. School Library Journal is found to provide the most complete bibliographic and ordering information. However, great variation in the adequacy of the content of the reviews continues to exist. As in earlier studies, this research indicates that no single journal provides all the information that librarians need.