Conduct a personal stock take of your knowledge of children’s literature. List some strategies you use or could use to increase your professional knowledge of children’s literature.

Hi. I’m Shannon, I’m a bibliophile, and possibly a book hoarder as well.

My nearly 5000 books attests to that (they’re really not all worth keeping!). Of those, quite a lot are picturebooks, children’s novels, and Young Adult novels. Having children of my own was excuse enough to source quality picturebooks and, later, children’s novels. The YA novels are mostly for me haha. I do love having a home library, and I also use a lot of them in my teaching – from professional learning to lesson resources.

I’ve also been an active member of Goodreads since 2007, where (surprisingly) I’m still #25 best reviewer in Australia, but my ‘active’ status has definitely dropped off since I started teaching and I don’t use it to keep abreast of what’s out anymore. I used to review books on my blog (and cross post to GR), but I accidentally deleted my blog a couple of years ago and I don’t visit the book blogging community anymore.

When it comes to genre fiction, I have a longstanding love of speculative fiction – especially fantasy, science fiction and dystopian – and romance. I did my Honours dissertation on fantasy fiction and originally had plans to do my PhD in it! I also enjoy historical fiction, coming-of-age drama stories and some mysteries. I’m not much of a crime/murder mystery reader but I do enjoy them from time to time, and thrillers.

But my ‘knowledge’ of children’s literature could be better. As I work in a senior secondary school, our library doesn’t stock much in what I would call the children’s fiction age range (what the Americans call ‘middle grade fiction, I believe): mid- to upper-primary, especially, which can also cover grades 7 and 8. Some books, like the Nevermoor series, straddle children’s and YA (in that they are written for children but are just as enjoyable for older readers as they’re quite sophisticated. Note, also, that the first Harry Potter books were written for children, while the last ones were definitely more YA).

Which is great for helping kids like my son expand his reading from easy graphic novels (Captain Underpants et al) to more involved narratives that rely more on the reader’s imagination.

So when it comes to what’s available, what’s ‘out there’, what’s being published and emerging trends, I’ve been relying mostly on those delightful occasions when I get to go to Fullers or Dymocks and browse their children’s section. So many books! Gosh it’s come a long way since I was a kid in the 80s, when there was nothing interesting to read and they all had such terrible, terrible ugly covers! (No wonder Roald Dahl was so popular, he really had no competition!)

To complement my browsing, I could

  • follow more children’s book reviews sites/reviewers – Instagram is my usual haunt these days, but the reviewers I follow all focus mostly on adult books
  • I don’t know, actually. My brain is so tired. Is there a children’s literature equivalent of Good Reading magazine? I should find out.