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Review Sources

Indexes to reviews

Reviews are generally found in journals such as School Library Journal, Booklist, Hornbook, VOYA, Book Report, Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Choice, and others. To locate a review for a specific title, you will want to start with an index rather than page through hundreds of issues of journals. Start with the publication date of the hardcover version of the book. Look in the index for that year or the year after it. Generally, reviews come out within about six months of the time an item is originally published.

Some of the review journals are indexed in databases such as MasterFILE Premier, but these databases generally do not index all the reviews. It is much better to start with one of the following indexes. Many larger public libraries will have one of these and Books in Print with Reviews is available online. Be wary of using reviews in online bookstores as they often have little authority behind them.

Book Review Index

bulletExamines 450 journals
bulletAlphabetical by author with title index
bullet40,000+ reviews per year
bulletNo annotations

Children’s Book Review Index 

bulletA subset of Book Review Index covering only children's books
bulletAlphabetical by author with title index
bulletNo annotations

Book Review Digest

bulletExamines 70 popular journals
bulletNonfiction must have had 2 or more reviews, fiction 4 or more, for inclusion
bullet5000-6000 titles per year - all published in US
bulletExcerpts from reviews, description of book, citations for other reviews
bulletAlphabetical b y author with titles and subject index

Books in Print with Reviews

bulletReview citations for some of the books included
bulletSearchable by author, title, keyword, etc.
bulletUpdated frequently
bulletOnly books currently in print

Children's Literature Review Reviews of an author's entire body of works

bulletArranged by author in each volume with index in the latest volume

Online bookstores

bulletUse with caution as their purpose is to sell books, not critically review them
bulletReviews may not be from journals but from customers themselves
bulletOften don't give complete citations or entire reviews so you may just see favorable section of review
bulletwww.amazon.com
bulletwww.bn.com

Online reviews

Booklist Magazine Book Reviews)  1996+

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