Research and Course Guides: Children's and Young Adult Literature: Finding Books

Searching for Books: Tips and Tricks

Use LibrarySearch to search for books:

If you are looking for a title, type it in the search box. When you are looking for books on a particular subject, try a keyword search for the term(s) - it can help to add the term "juvenile" to focus the search.
For an author, type the last name first.
Limit the "St. Thomas Location" to "Keffer Library - Children's Literature Collection" on the left-sidebar.

If Keffer Library doesn't own a book you are looking for, request the title through Interlibrary Loan and get it for free.

Books About Kids Literature

Explore diverse approaches to Kids Literature with the below titles. Learn about what scholars, authors, and children think about kids lit while getting suggestions for specific titles. All of the below titles are available online.

Alt Kids Lit: What Children's Literature Might Be
This title offers diverse theoretical meditations, interviews, and case studies on Alt Kids Lit. Chapters include topics like fanfiction; Latinx, Indigenous, and silkpunk speculative fiction; environmental zines; shōnen anime, and much, much more.
Children's Cultures after Childhood
Thirteen chapters by international contributors offer a cross-section of empirical and theoretical approaches to conceptualize research on children’s literature.
Containing Childhood: Space and Identity in Children's Literature
This book features essays on popular and lesser-known children’s fiction, referring to space as a location children occupy, both physically and imaginatively.
The Child Gaze
Chapters in this book investigate how the acts of children looking allow texts to redraw circles of inclusion around the child's gaze and mobilize childhood as a site of resistance. Using titles like The Hate U Give, American Born Chinese, and more.