Ruth Simon
November, 1998
Class Project: Web Resources
Book Reviews on the Internet
Can’t find anything to watch on TV these days? Want to curl up with a good book, or read a book for an English class assignment and don’t know where to begin? Try the Internet. There are literally hundreds of book reviews to get you started. This type of information is also helpful for people in book clubs, and for parents and teachers who want to keep up with what is available for children. There are also audio book reviews and book reviews by children.
The BookRadio web site gives a very brief synopsis of several audio books. There are approximately twenty-four audio books reviewed. You can listen to about 90 seconds of interview time with the selected author or author’s of the week.
The Washington Post has a web site entitled Washington Post Book World. This web site has about two dozen books listed with a short synopsis of each book. If you use the link to the book you are interested in, you’ll find a more in-depth review.
At the web site called RealBooks, you’ll find reviews from major newspapers around the country. The advantage of this web site is the link entitled Chapter One. It is a nine-page list of books that has first chapters published online. Each week new first chapters of books are added. Be careful because you may end up in front of the computer screen for a very long time. This feature is habit forming!
Dindrane’s Book Reviews is a web site that has reviews by English professors. The professors grade the books at the end of their review. The reviews are very detailed and enlightening. This site only reviews literary fiction such as The Awakening, The Handmaid’s Tale, Sense and Sensibility and The Plague to name a few, but there is a site for popular fiction and non-fiction reviews as well.
There are several web sites for children’s books. Connections: Children’s Book News is actually a publication of a newsletter entitled Book A-Fair. This newsletter is published five times a year, and the web version is published at the same time. There are four issues on the Internet. The most current issue is February 1998. This site is for parents and teachers who want to know about the new children’s books that are being published, and what old favorites are back in print. This site will also help parents and teachers choose books according to a child’s needs.
Another web site for children’s book reviews is a personal site developed by a 15-year-old girl named Rachel. The web site is entitled Welcome to My Web Site! and is a great web site for pre-teen girls to locate good reading material that is appropriate for their age group. The web site crashed a while ago and Rachel is still trying to put it back together, but what she has so far is rather impressive.
The next web site was chosen so that I could look at reviews of children’s books that were divided into age groups. I was specifically interested in the two- and four-year-old range, and I found a link entitled Books Rock. I used the Yahoo search engine and typed "book reviews." This led me to a page of category matches with a link entitled, Arts: Humanities: Literature: Genres: Children’s: Reviews. This link led to the web page that listed several web sites for children’s book reviews. The site I chose, Books Rock, had a description that reads: "Books Rock - reviews of books for kids, divided by age group." Instead of finding book reviews, this was a web site for Wicca, an ancient religion. There are no reviews of children's books anywhere in the web site, so somehow the search engine had incorrectly cross-listed these two sites. My point in mentioning this site is that you don’t always get what you want on the Internet.
Fortunately, the next web site did bring up what it promised. The web site is entitled World of Reading. It is another children’s web site for books and reviews, but with a different twist. This web site allows children to read reviews of books from children around the world. The site also helps children with book reports and lets them know how they can get their stories published online. This site also has books published online for children to read. The online book site is not very professional looking, and you must scroll through pleas for donations and official information regarding the site before getting to the book. That process may be worth while because this site has about a dozen classics published online. The Adventures of Huck Finn, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Alice in Wonderland, are just a few from which a child can choose.
Distinguished Women of Past and Present is a web site of biographies of women through history who have contributed to society in many different ways. Although this web site isn’t a review of these biographies, it is a wonderful place to find information for research papers, or for personal enjoyment. The site has won many academic awards and through the Site Awards and Reviews link, the reader can explore many additional educational links as well as read the reviews of this site. This is a great web site, although a work still in progress.
As you can see, the selection of book reviews is extremely diverse. There is also diversity among the same topics. Each link is an avenue to more and more information. The information can provide not only a book review, but it can also assist with research. Looking at the reviews can narrow a search for information. Of course, this is just a minute sampling of the reviews you will find on the Internet. Nevertheless, you can be certain you’ll never be at a loss for web sites to investigate when you’re looking for a good book.
Works Cited
Bois, Duanuta. Distinguished Women of Past and Present. (Accessed 11/20/98) <http://www.netsrq.com/~dbois/index.html>.
Bois, Duanuta. Site Awards and Reviews. (Accessed 11/20/98) <http://www.netsrq.com/~dbois/awards.html>.
BookRadio. (Accessed 11/20/98) <http://www.bookradio.com/indexpages/cover.html>.
Chun, Georgia. Connections: Children’s Book News. (Accessed 11/20/98) <http://www.community.net/~books/.>.
Dindrane’s Book Reviews. (Accessed 11/20/98) <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/5187/bookrev.html>.
RealBooks. (Accessed on 11/20/98).<http://www.realbooks.com/front.htm>.
Timmons, Mary P. World of Reading. (Last Modified: 10/16/97) <http://www.worldreading.org>.
Washington Post Book World. (Accessed on 11/20/98) <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/m-bookworld.html>.
Welcome to My Web Site! (Accessed 11/18/98) <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/5036/>.
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