ECI 302

Welcome! The below resources will help you find information & sources for your assignment to understand various genres of children's literature for the K-8 classroom.

A lot of you will find what you need in the help boxes "E-Books" and "Databases & Journal Articles" and I would start there! I've also included more specific sources for some of the topics.  If you have trouble finding what you need please e-mail me!

Books generally contain more and broader information than a journal article. They are a great place to get broader context on a given subject.  Try limiting Quick Search to e-books & use Children's Literature as your search terms.

Tips on accessing e-books: 

• You can download a portion of the full book without installing extra software. Use the "Save Pages" button to pick the page range that you want to download. 
• Some of the books have a limit on number of users that can read the book at one time. If this number is reached try again in about 10 minutes or an hour. 

Databases are a great way to find articles! There are databases specific to education and literature. This makes it much easier to search and find the information you need quickly.

Try using one of these search terms in combination with one from your genre:

• Children's literature
• Children's nonfiction
• Adolescent literature
• Young adult literature
• Juvenile fiction
• Juvenile nonfiction 
• Picture books
• Nursery Rhymes

To narrow it further add:

• Teaching 
• Curriculum
• Learning
• Reading comprehension 
• Elementary
• Kindergarten 

An example search might look like:

Teaching Poetry Elementary

"Picture Books" visual literacy

"Traditional literature encompasses books rendered from oral tradition--stories that have been passed down for ages (Kiefer, 2007)--and as a result are commonly shared throughout the world. This literature includes folktales, myths, fables, and legends." Barone, D. M. (2011). Children's Literature in the Classroom: Engaging Lifelong Readers. Guilford Press.

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• Traditional 
• Folktales
• Folklore
• Fairy Tales
• Mythology
• Myth
• Legends

You might also add in a specific country or region for example: Chinese Folklore or Traditional European tales.

For examples, try searching Project Guttenberg for follklore

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• Multicultural
• Cultural
• Diversity
• Diverse
• Representation
• Global
• International
• Multilingual
• A specific country or region 
• A specific population or ethnicity

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• "picture books"
• picturebooks
• Illustrations
• Visual

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• Poetry
• Poet
• A particular author or novel

You might also look at previous winners of the Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Awards for children's books.

Historical fiction are situated in the past. It may be based upon dates, people, or events that really happened.

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• "historical fiction"
• History
• A specific event, period or person (WWII, Civil Rights Movement, Abraham Lincoln)

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• Fantasy
• A specific fantasy author (example: Diana Wynne Jones) or book (example: A Wrinkle in Time)

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• biography
• biographies
• autobiographies
• memoirs

"Informational books are sometimes called “nonfiction” books. Their main purpose is to provide a source of knowledge on a variety of topics. Informational texts are written at a variety of reading levels to accommodate diverse learners. Informational texts range from simple word and picture books to those that explain more complex science concepts with photographs and diagrams" (Illinois Early Learning Project)

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with:

• "Informational books"
• "informational children's books"
• "informational picture books"
• Informational
• Non-fiction
• Nonfiction

The quotation marks will force the database to search for that exact phrase, which helps narrow your results and exclude sentences like: an informational presentation was given on new books

The American Library Association keeps a list of frequently challenged books as well as a list of resources for libraries facing book challenges.

PEN America (a non-profit for freedom of speech) has a report on book banning in schools.

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with:

• challenged books
• banned books
• controversial books

Try combining a search term above (from the Databases & Finding Articles box) with: 

• "Contemporary fiction"
• Realistic
• A specific situation or location (adoption, school, anxiety, death, family, traveling)