Websites & relevance for use
by teens
Five
Teen Leisure Reading Web Sites
TeensPoint.org Reading Matters
www.teenspoint.org/reading_matters/teen_reviews.asp?media=book This site is
sponsored by Central Rappahannack Regional Library in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The options include Teen reviews, Librarian reviews, Book lists, Keeping an
online reading log, Author profiles, and links to author websites, other
reading websites and links to writing sites such as Teen Ink. There is also a
Book Match option that allows readers to email for suggestions for what to read
next or access the archives of others’ requests.
Reader’s Club www.readersclub.org/category.asp?cat=4 This site is sponsored by
the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Public Library. There is a list of links by
genre that provide adult and YA titles with reviews. There is also the
possibility of emailing a review to a friend. You can do a book search by
author, title or genre and you can fill out a form for a what to read next
request. There are links to celebrity book reviews, author interviews, other
reading websites and a place to submit a review.
No flying, No tights http://noflyingnotights.com/index.html A
graphic novel review website for teens. From its home page, you can link to
sidekicks for kids for graphic novels geared towards a younger crowd and the
lair, which is geared toward more mature teens and adults. There are a few
surveys and a number of articles written about graphic novels that teens can
respond to. There are also genre links that provide reading suggestions with
reviews. Under the core lists section librarians and teachers are addressed to
learn about graphic novel suggestions for beginning a collection with reviews.
Robin Brenner, a library technician at Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, MA
who is working on her MLS and a number of other librarians and computer
specialists in and around the area, maintains the site.
Review and React www.reviewandreact.com/ This site is produced and maintained
by Buffalo High School in Buffalo, MN. They first started it as a place
students could post reviews of books they had read, but then realized the
importance of having a site where there could be some sort of conversation about
books available to their and other teens. So they developed the react portion
of the site for give and take conversation on a book. Students can also do
searches for suggestions by genre, author or title. There are specific
guidelines for submitting reviews.
Genrefluent www.genrefluent.com/index.html This site is maintained by Diana
Tixier Herald who has written several genre-related books including Teen
Genreflecting. She has a number of genre lists with reviews of many titles she
has read. You can also do a title or author search from an index she has of all
titles along with a recent reads page. There are links to a number of genre
award and author sites. These pages would be helpful to librarians. She has a
link to Teens Talk About Books, which is a page where teens can write reviews
for BBYA nominations and Teen Top Ten. She also has a link to the Center for
Adolescent Reading that works with at-risk students and is responsible for the
Teens Talk About Books page.
1.The Morton Grove Public Library
website is a wonderful resource. The teen section is an easy-to-find link from
the home page. There is a wealth of
information including booklists nicely subdivided into categories for easy
browsing, YA author websites, graphic novels, award winners and writing.
2.On the homepage of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
website, the link to the teen site is very visible on the home page. It
opens with recent additions to the collection. Each description is a brief
synopsis of the book, a view of the book, and a link to add comments about the
book. Many categories of young adult literature are offered to the left and
link to more of the same type descriptions. This is an easy way to
browse young adult books in a specific genre.
3.The Random House website is a very interesting site to use. The number of
books may be limited to only those published by Random House but the
resources available for those books are exceptional. Browsing by the category
Young Adult leads one to a list of YA titles. The great thing is that there is
a Reader's Guide for each book, a list of indepth questions that goes with the
book. This is fantastic for teachers. There are links for each book to
information about the book, awards it has won, information about the author,and
website links related to the book.
4.Teenreads is a true teen site. One can access it from Bookreporter.com. It is
geared toward young adults because there are polls for teens and about
teens as well as book club and reading guides for teens. There are contests
that appeal to teens. The site has a young feel to it with the colorful
graphics and simple, no-nonsense offerings. There are brief synopses of
young adult books. One can read a review or an author interview and most
offer a link to the author's website.
5.TnrdLib (Thompson Nicola Regional District Library System) is a truly
unique website from Canada. It might be useful for teens who don't want to
listen to an adult's reading suggestions because they can search for a book
by "appeal factors." They conduct a search by going through an
extensive
list of questions about what they are looking for in a book (length, gender
of characters, setting, etc.) The search reveals recommendations based on
their criteria. Only trouble is, I wasn't sure who was giving the
recommendations. One can also search the database by genre and browse
comments on books in certain categories. These comments, at least the ones in
the young adult genre, were obviously written by teens. They are short,
sometimes rude and not very helpful. However, the novelty of the site may help
some teens find something to read.
Bookreporter.com. (2006). Retrieved September 20, 2006 from
www.bookreporter.com
Morton Grove Public Library. (2006). Morton Grove Public Library¹s
Webrary.
Retrieved September 20, 2006 from
www.webrary.org/rs/Flmenu.htm
Netscape. (2006). Open Directory
Project. Retrieved September 22, 2006
from http://dmoz.org/Kids_and_Teens/Teen_Life/Magazines_and_Ezines/
Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. (2006). Reader¹s Club.
Retrieved
September
20, 2006 from www.readersclub.org
Random House, Inc. (2006). Random House, Inc. Retrieved September 20, 2006
from www.randomhouse.com/reader_resources/browsetitle/
Teenreads.com (2006). Teenreads.com. Retrieved September 21, 2006 from
www.teenreads.com/index.asp
Thompson Nicola Regional District Library System. (2006). Reading Robots.
RetrievedSeptember 21, 2006 from www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/rr.html
These are five reading related Web
sites that I found dealing with teen leisure reading.
Teenreads.com -- http://www.teenreads.com/
This was the first site that I
visited for this assignment. The site
is definitely eye catching with it colorful display. Teens are drawn to such sites.
The ease of navigation through the site and active links are also
positive features of this Web site.
This site has a little of everything which I think makes it a great one
to bookmark. It has book reviews,
monthly reading related contests, special feature books, new releases, book
club guides, interviews with authors, and as summer approaches they post the
“Ultimate Summer Reading List.” Right
now, they are working to create the list by taking suggestions from teens.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Teen
Reads -- http://www.carnegielibrary.org/teens/read/teenlists.html
This is a great site. It has the teen book suggestions divided
into subjects. Teens can quickly pick a
topic of interest and link right to a list of suggested teen books. They have 22 different subject lists, such as
Graphic Novels, It’s Rough Out There (fiction books dealing with teen life and
issues), Modern Day Fairy Tales, etc.
This site is very simple in format and easy to use. I love how quickly you can locate a teen
book that will interest you, and I think teens will too.
Bookloons – Teens --
http://www.bookloons.com/HandHTML/teens.html
This site is similar to Teenreads.com. It offers cool book related contests, book
reviews, and interviews with authors.
However, this site offers a few different resources for teens. There is a link to story samples where teens
can read excerpts from recent releases.
This is a neat feature. The site
also has a link to reading online where teens can actually read books and poems
online. This Web site also has links to
the official sites of popular teen book series. In addition, it has a link to a list of teen books recommended by
teens for picky readers. I cannot wait
to show my students this site.
Reader’s Club: Teen Corner Book Reviews -- http://www.readersclub.org/category.asp?cat=4
This young adult site provides
book reviews for many different types of books. Teens can read the new reviews that are featured on the site, or
they can pick a specific genre that they are interested in. This site also provides a newsletter that
can be emailed out to interested teens.
This site allows you to search for a review of a certain title. What a great feature!! This site also has a place for teens to
describe their interests and submit for reading recommendations. Other neat features include a personal
reading log and celebrity reviews.
Favorite Teenage Angstbooks --
http://www.grouchy.com/angst/
This site deals specifically with
teen books that focus on the struggles and challenges of being a teen. This is a site that teens can really relate
to. Reviews are broken up into such
topics as sex and love, fitting in, peer pressure, etc. This site also provides interviews with
authors and other cool bits of information.
The site provides teens with a place to interact with the creator of the
site, Cathy Young, via a message board.
Coming soon to this site are links to online journals written by
teens. This is a great resource. Teens will love this site.
After reading first few postings,
I picked a couple of sites that were mentioned several times. I also found a couple of others.
1. Teen Central
- http://www.downersgrovelibrary.org/teencentral/index.html
Teen Central is
a website sponsored and created by Downers Grove Public Library in Downers
Grove, Illinois. This site contains a book recommendation section called Great
Reads. The "Our Recommendations" area includes Favorite Fiction and
Reviews from Downers Grove TAB (Teen Advisory Board), Nonfiction, Sports, Dating
Drama, and Page Turners. The Recommendations from Other People's area include
award lists, such as Alex, Michael L Printz, and YALSA, Best Audiobooks and
Best DVDs. Homework Help links are available in different subject areas.
Readers & Writers section tells teens how to write to a favorite author,
start a book club and get their work published. This site also provides links
to teen magazine websites, such as CosmoGirl, Mad, PC Gamer, Seventeen, Shonen
Jump, Teen People, and Thrasher. Teen Central is teen-friendly and easy to
navigate. Graphics would make the website more attractive and interesting to
teens.
2. Reading
Rants! - http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/jen/
Reading Rants!
is a website with "Out of the Ordinary Booklists." Recent lists
updated on August 2006 are Graphic Fantastics: Great Graphic Reads for Teens,
Historical Fiction for Hipsters, and Nail Biters: Teen Psychological Thrillers,
and Virgin Run: Books about Falling in Love and First Times for Teens. This
site includes many controversial topics for teens to read, such as drugs, sex,
homosexuality, and witchcraft. Jennifer Hubert, the creator of Reading Rants!,
mentions that Reading Rants! is specifically written to teens not to adults
even though adults do enjoy her site. For each book listed, a review and a
front cover photo are included. Teens will find Reading Rants! intriguing and
appealing. Due to some controversial topics l was unsure that it would be
accepted in a high school library, but a local high school does have Reading
Rants! bookmarked on the media center computers.
3. TeenLink - http://teenlink.nypl.org/index.html
TeenLink,
sponsored by the New York Public Library, has a bright and colorful homepage.
The first graphic and link listed is eNYPL where library patrons can download
free videos, music, ebooks and audiobooks through the library's catalog. Since
many teens are computer and technological savvy, eNYPL is a great way to
introduce teens to the public library and to reading. Most of the homepage is
devoted to Meet the Authors with times and places (NY public library branches)
to meet young adult authors. Each author's photograph is provided which gives a
wonderful visual to teens. (I noticed John Green will be a part of a seven teen
author panel at a branch in October. I read his book Looking for Alaska for
a Peck question and loved it.) Another interesting aspect of TeenLink is the
inclusion of Turn It Up podcast program where New York teens speak their
opinions on certain topics relevant to teens, such as stereotypes, gay
marriage, and the anti-prom in recognition of LGBTQ Pride Month. Teens can
download the MP3 audios to listen to the podcasts. Also new young adult books
are highlighted on the homepage with a brief summary, front cover photo, and
link to the library's catalog. Even though many of the items on TeenLink is
specifically geared toward New York City teens, teens from other parts of the
country would enjoy the links to the booklists found in the sidebar. The
booklists include The Dream Lives On (books about people of African descent),
Just Visiting This Planet (books for anyone who has ever felt like a stranger
in a strange land), Poetry Unleashed, Taffeta, Tuxedos and Tulle: Books and
Movies about Prom Night, and When Bad Things Happen. This site would be a great
example for other public libraries and school media centers to follow when
wanting to create an attractive and useful website for teens.
4. Teenspace - http://teenspace.cincinnatilibrary.org/books/
Teenspace is
sponsored by the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. The Books
& Reading section include Hot Authors & Series, Book Reviews written by
teens, Booklists, Award Winners, and New Stuff. A review form is available
online for teens to submit their own book review. Here are a few of the
Booklists titles available that would entice teens: It's Not Easy Being a
Pirate, Cool Books for Hot Nights, Great Graphic Novels, Just Like Me: African
American Novels for Teens, Manga Madness, Pet-Palooza: Fiction for Pet Lovers,
Try Some Sci-Fi, and Urban Legends and Scary Stories. All listed books include
a summary, front cover photo, and link to the library's catalog. There is also
a link to the ezine, Seven Hills Review, which is a poetry publication written
for teens by Cincinnati and Hamilton County teens. This ezine would be a great
way to introduce students to poetry - reading and writing. Teenspace provides
links for teens to other websites, such as college, comics, magazines &
ezines and to happenings around Cincinnati, such as music, culture and
entertainment. Teenspace's homepage is creative, colorful, and attractive with
graphics and photographs. Many teens would find Teenspace worthwhile and
useful, especially when looking for a book to read for pleasure.
5. Teen Ink - http://teenink.com/
Teen Ink is a
magazine, website, and book series written for teens by teens. Teens are asked
to submit their writing and/or artwork as there are no staff writers or artist.
Each magazine issue is devoted to poetry, fiction, nonfiction, book, movie and
music reviews, sports, art, interviews, opinions, cars, college reviews, and
many more topics and reviews. Visitors may read past issues of Teen Ink as they
are archived on the website. Teens will find many of the articles, stories and
essays interesting and informative. It will encourage reading especially since
everything on the website and in the magazine is written only by teens and be
easy to relate to. It may even entice them to submit some of their own writing
and/or artwork to be published. Teachers and librarians would benefit from
visiting this site in order to stay current with teen interests and to
recommend the site to teens. Teen Ink also has a bulletin board (discussion
board) where teens discuss issues from News & Issues to Family to Dating,
Love, & Friendship to Health to Sports & Hobbies to Random Thoughts.
This site would be a popular one for teens to visit and most importantly -
read!
1) Teen Read,
Teen Reviewed http://reviews.goshenpubliclibrary.org/b2/blogs/index.php?blog=2
This site is
run by the Goshen NY Public Library. This site allows teens to review recently
read material or the option of posting a review of their own. There is a search
engine if someone is looking for a specific book under the site or it can be
searched by category.
Each book
reviewed has the author, types of books, how the book came to be read and the
review. The site is very thorough and easy to navigate for the teenage
audience.
2) Teen Reads
At this site
teens have the option of answering the question of the month as well as the monthly
poll. There is also the opportunity for readers to chat with one of the authors
of a book being featured. I think this site has a wonderful amount of
information that would be greatly useful for teen pleasure reading. There are
reviews for a lot of the books as well as links to the author’s direct websites
as well as their sites on My Space which is frequented often by teens.
3) St. Charles
Public Library-Recommended Teen Reading
www.st-charles.lib.il.us/teens/ygadread.htm
There is a
bunch of different links on this site. A few of the links are as follows:
Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award Nominees-2006 and Alex Awards.
The first link is for books voted as the most outstanding by grade 9-12
students in Illinois. The second link is for ten books written for adults but
that has specific appeal for students’ ages 12-18.
This site would
be a benefit to students as the information listed is very current and is
specific to their age group. This also allows students to choose a bit more of
a challenging read if they were to choose the latter of the two options.
4)Authors for
Teens
This site
requires the individual to sign up for a yearly subscription. On this site we
are able to click on one of the many authors featured and read an interview.
Next to the author chosen are the books he or she has written. The information
gained from this site would be helpful to teens who may not completely
understand the authors view or message for a particular book. The downside to
this site is it requires a yearly fee ($75.00) to access this information.
5) Carmel Clay
Public Library Young Adult
www.carmel.lib.in.us/ya/yamain.cfm
Students are
able to check out the Teen Library Council link which is made up of 25 students
grades 7-12. The students choose their favorite books and there is a listing
for the past ten years. Also on this site is a link for www.readforteens.org which is also run
by the Carmel Library. It is a listing of books chosen by teens and reviewed by
teens.
This site would
be beneficial because there are multiple years listed so teenagers would have
their choice of many different books and the reviewers are teenagers. It would
be nice for a teenager to get a perspective on a book from one of their own
peers.
Graphic Novels
This website was created by two MLS graduate students at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. As they grew to understand and
appreciate graphic novels, they
wanted to create a site devoted to promoting and
recommending graphic novels for young
adult readers. The reviews are divided into
fiction and non-fiction, with additional links
for resources and “best of the best” reviews.
Favorite Teenage
Angstbooks
The title of this web site alone would be enough to catch the interest of many a teen
reader. All teens go through some trial or
tribulation during their teenage years- and it is
easy to find a related book on this web site.
With topics ranging from popularity to peer
pressure and back to broken homes, this site
covers the full gamut of teen angst topics.
The only complaint that I have about this site
is the lack of breadth of the reviews. Each
topic is touched on briefly and three to five
books are recommended, whereas there could easily be 15-20 titles reviewed for
variety.
Wake County Public
Libraries Teens’ Reading Lists
The Wake County Teens’ Reading List is categorized by Battle of the Books, Fantasy,
Historical, Humorous, Mystery, Realistic,
Science, Sports, and Spy Fiction. Each genre
has approximately 6-14 brief reviews of books
ranging to upper juvenile to true young
adult fiction. Each title links to the
corresponding catalog page which shows the location
and availability of each book. This would be
especially useful for located titles that are
not found in the school media center.
Teen Reads
This site features book reviews written by a mixture of authors, publishers, bookseller,
and teens themselves. The reviews are arranged
alphabetically and have a synopsis,
review, excerpt, and links to amazon.com. There
is a large selection of books to choose
from, but I think it would be better arranged
into smaller genre groups. Also, the
reviews
are quite lengthy and after reading a few of
them I feel like I’ve read all the best parts of
the book.
YA Stars
The most unique feature of this site was each book was labeled with the awards it had
received. On the default list books are arranged
alphabetically by author name which
makes it easy to find books by an already liked
author. However, the categories are very
broad, for example listing a novel as “fiction”
rather than indicating historical or science
or realistic fiction.
CITATIONS:
American Library Association.
(2006). YALSA. Retrieved September 25, 2006 from
The Book Report Network, (2006). Teen
Reads. Retrieved September 24, 2006, from: http://www.teenreads.com/
Spisak, A. and Newhouse, R.
(2006). Graphic Novels. Retrieved September 24, 2006, from: http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/seworkspace/aspisak/Home.htm
Theis, A.C. (2006). YA Stars 2006.
Retrieved September 14, 2006, from: http://www.overbooked.org/stars/ya/06.html
Wake County Public Libraries.
(2006). Teens’ Reading Lists. Retrieved September 24, 2006, from: http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/kidsandteens/teensreadinglists.htm
Young, C. (2004). Favorite Teenage
Angstbooks. Retrieved September 24, 2006, from: http://www.grouchy.com/angst/index.html