Middle School Library Selection Aid Toolkit List

This tween Coretta Scott King Book Award Winners list is compiled by Common Sense Media. The list is ordered with the latest award winners at the top. Coretta Scott King Book Award winners show an appreciation of African American culture. Each listing provides a one-sentence description with a hyperlink to purchase the book and a link to the full Common Sense Media book review, parent guide, kid reviews and ratings, and much more. This list compilation provides much more detailed information that the usual top picks book lists.

Pura Belpre Award is bestowed to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work "portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth". The awards are presented by Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), divisions of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. This link show cases the award winners in Children's Author Award | Youth Illustrator Award | Young Adult Author Award categories as well as provides information on honor books for each category. Information includes title, author, publisher, and a summary.

Best Young Adult Books 2020 is one of School Library Journal's Best Books lists and contains 19 novels showcasing the most engaging young adult books published in 2020. This list was compiled by Susannah Goldstein, Katy Hershberger, Maggie Knapp, Ashley Leffel, and Carla Riemer and is updated yearly. The novels are not rated in order on the list and each listing contains the title, grade level recommendation, publisher and ISBN. The titles are hyperlinked to a SLJ review of the work.

Build Your Stack® is a National Council of Teachers of English initiative sponsored by The American American Psychological Association. There are 35 video sessions with authors and educators talking about their favorite books and how to use them in the classroom. Members of NCTE submit entries for consideration on the website. There are blog posts to accompany each session and a link to order discussed books through bookshop.org. Examples of recommendation lists range from "Short Texts, Big Engagement" to "Books with Literary Flair - and Math" to "Inclusive Stories Affirming Gender Diversity". The bookshop.org link provides a way to order books as well as book and author description, cost, ISBN, and awards won. Build Your Stack lists are for elementary to middle school. This resource is updated as new entries are submitted.

Booklist Online Book Review: Alex Awards: 2020 is produced by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and sponsored by the Margaret E. Edwards trust. This award list honors the top 10 adult fiction books published in the previous year that might be of interest to readers age 12-18. The list includes a book description, link to purchase the book, ISBN, and price. When the link to purchase is clicked the e-book price is also available. The Alex Award list is updated yearly. There is not a final overall rating, but there are only 10 books chosen for this award yearly.

The Best Middle Grades Books 2020 is a list of twenty-five works published by School Library Journal and compiled by by Emily Beasley, Monisha Blair, Myiesha Speight, Ashleigh Williams, and Taylor Worley. This list was published at the end of 2020. The Best Middle Grades Books list is updated yearly and suggested books are on grade levels varying from 3rd to 9th grade. The list is not ranked and for each title provides a summary, ISBN, and a hyperlink to a SLJ review.

This particular search on Titlewave was for Young Adult graphic novels as compiled by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Titlewave is produced by Follett and seems to be an almost endless source of resources. You can search any book by title or author or peruse their many lists of top resources by almost any genre or subject. The Titlewave list includes tags describing title and is sorted by popularity. Various book types are available and each listing includes Dewey listing, interest level, AR level, Lexile, price and book type. There are multiple ways to sort titles to conduct the search of your choice. The titles are hyperlinked to a full description with more information and reviews. ***NOTE: Accessing Titlewave requires signing up for a free account.

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This link takes you to a list of young adult literature blogs by Booklist contributing authors. It is a young adult literature finder gem! There are reviews on books by respected members of the Booklist, Book Links, and Booklist Online community. Booklist is associated with the American Library Association. There is a summary and commentary provided for each title. Some authors have compiled lists surrounding a certain subject or issue. The Five More to Go Blog provides additional titles that may have interest for a reader who likes the main title reviewed.

The 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards in Best Middle Grade & Children's book is a list of the most voted on books of registered Goodreads members. This resource is important to help find books that students are interested in reading. Other readers have care enough about these books to vote them as best books. Goodreads is sponsored by Amazon. There is a winner for each year as well as a listing of all nominees. The total votes for each title are listed. Information included for each book includes title, author, and a short summary. The titles are hyperlinked to take the user to more details and purchasing information about the titles.

This resource provides the Excellence in Science book award winners as determined by American Association for the Advancement of Science and Subaru of America Inc. This award seeks to support and commend books and authors who foster students interest and appreciation of the sciences. There are four categories of award winners which are Children’s Science Picture Book, Middle Grades Science Book, Hands-On Science Book, and Young Adult Science Book. The award winners are announced yearly and links at the bottom of the page provide access to previous year award recipients. Book information includes tile, author, publisher and a book summary.

The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults ages 12 to 18 from November 1 to October 31 of a publishing year. The Young Adult Library Services Association is a division of the American Library Association. This link for provides information on the current year's nonfiction winner as well as information on the finalists and links to previous year winners and vetted nomination lists. Information included for each book includes title, author, publisher, description, and ISBN.

The Odyssey Award is an award for audiobooks. It is jointly given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), divisions of ALA, and is sponsored by Booklist. The Odyssey Award is given to one audiobook a year along with several honors. This list provides titles and a short description for the 2021 winner and honors. There are links to previous year winners and honor titles at the bottom of the page.

The Mathical Book Prize honors fiction and nonfiction books that inspire a love of math. Winners are announced yearly. The Mathical Book Prize is a project of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The website offers a list of each year's Mathical Award Winners, printables, and reading guides. Titles are searchable by grade level and various other tags.

The Social Studies Books for the Classroom from the Scholastic Teacher Store offers over a thousand results that are easily sorted and/or filtered by grade, reading level, and various facets or subject areas of middle grades social studies. You can click on "quick look" to see price, item #, ISBN, format, genre, grades, reading level and more. You can also click on "full product detail" for a summary and standard alignment. Books can be ordered right from the Scholastic website. Some, but not all, books are reviewed by other purchasers.

This 2019-2020 Makerspace & Innovation interactive flipbook is published by Follet. It contains Makerspace kits curated by School Library Journal's 2017 School Librarian of the Year, Tamiko Brown as well as a plethora of other resources for the Makerspace in your school library. This selection catalog contains a brief description of the products, grade level, an item number, and a price. The flipbook is organized into "chapters" such as LEGO Education, STEM, Robotics, Coding, 3-D Printing and more which organize the many products available.

Socials are great places to find ideas and share interests. Try Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or others for current and fresh ideas.

Use these to get started:
#amreading
#amreadingya
#bookstagram