Book Crush: For Kids and Teens--Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest Paperback – March 6, 2007

This book is a huge resource. It was recommended for me to buy for a "writing for kids" class, but is a tremendous resource for parents, grandparents and teachers. It is packed full of titles separated into topics, with brief information, and for recomendated ages. Anyone looking for that "special" book should check this out.

made a nice gift

I've only read the chapter for the youngest readers. It is full of worthwhile books, and I think the categorization is very helpful. I'm sure everyone who reads this book will have his/her own favorite books that didn't get included in Pearl's long list, but still, the omission of Nancy Tafuri is inexplicable.

I bought this looking for another reference to pick books for kids. I also use this to help teachers. It is a good partner with Jim Treleases read-aloud book & updates.

I am having a hard time finding books for my very sensitive 9 year old girl that scares easily (either from situations or the more obvious ghosts and demons). I had hoped this book would list books for general ages and then break down book topics and reviews. Unfortunately, I felt this book wa all over the place. It may be considerably easier to read this in paperback format, I mistakenly bought it on kindle. I am disappointed as the book downs serve my needs at all. Not doubting that Mrs. Pearl has lots of wisdom and experience to offer, this just wasn't the right book for me to be able to find what I needed

I own this book and have found it to be helpful when looking for new authors or series to try with our kids. I was very disappointed by the negative School Library Journal review. It's a great journal that has a great deal of sway in the education community as it should, but in this case, I had to wonder if the reviewer had done more than a cursory glance at the book. I did not think it fairly represented the book.The author of the School Library Journal review for Book Crush mostly questioned why some books were not included and some were. It did not seem to question her actual comments about the books so much, but seemed very concerned that not all the books were listed that should have been per category. For example, under the fantasy section, the reviewer took umbrage that Mercedes Lackey is mentioned, but Anne McCaffrey is not. However, McCaffrey is listed in a separate section on Dragons, in which she is called the queen of dragon lore. She is not left out! Perhaps Ms. Pearl just did not want to list someone twice when there are so many fabulous people to include. (Plus: spoiler alert: Anne McCaffrey's beloved Pern series is actually science fiction, not fantasy.) I felt like it was obvious she couldn't include all the great books, not even all the best books. This book is meant to be a fast and fun overview of some great titles, not an in-depth review of all possibilities. One look at the smaller size of the book should have made that clear. There are encyclopedic-sized books of children's book lists that can serve that purpose. This is just a sampling of her choices, so the review was odd to me. The reviewer also wondered why Feed, by M.T. Anderson, was listed as Middle Grade-- but it's not. It's listed in the "Utopia-Not!" section for teen readers, pg 258, so it made me wonder how closely the reviewer had read the book. The first line of the book IS mentioned at the end of the middle reader section, where she mentions her own personal favorite opening lines, but that's not where her actual book review of it is. Someone browsing through or just using the index might not catch the distinction, but it definitely is a YA book and I think it's clear that she delineates it as such. And it does have a fantastic opening line.I personally love her chatty manner. It's like sitting down with a friend to talk about good books. It's not a straight-forward, plain list, but that doesn't make it bad. It just makes it different than what some people want. I think that a review from the School Library Journal ought to be live up to the strong name of the journal and be sure that the information it includes is correct. This is someone's hard work that is being evaluated, and when it is judged unfairly, it is especially upsetting. This is a great book that serves its intended purpose.

I love the idea of this book but I thought it would be more like the Books to Grow With, which lists the book title and information, and a description of each book under various topics. While I did like some of the topics in the mid-grade section like `Good Books for Discussion', `Laugh Out Loud', `Not a Dry Eye in the House'. I wasn't thrilled with the YA topics, such as `Up All Night' (violent books), `May I Have This Dance' (old fashioned books), `Slowly Unraveling' (books that take some figuring out) and `Tam Lin' (not even quite sure what this category is even after I read the author's explanation)--and I don't think teens would be thrilled either. The titles for teach section are confusing and it's hard to know what kind of books they'll contain. The other thing I don't like is that the book is written in prose style and the titles are mixed into the prose. I don't want to have to read the whole book to find recommendations. I was looking for more of a reference with what each book is about.

Excited to get his book! Learned about it at a conference. Looking forward to reading it this summer and using ideas in my classroom next school year. Great price and fast shipping!

As a self confessed book geek, who loves teen fiction, this was a really good reference book. It divides into sections such as 'romance', or 'war' and recommends books, but this is not merely lists, it is almost a novel about novels. I would think this would be a good gift for a keen reader who is in their early teens.