Schwedt, Rachel E., and Janice DeLong. Core Collections for Children and Young Adults. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. 207p. cloth, $50.00 (ISBN 0-8108-6115-2). LC 2008-15070.

Readers should be warned: the book annotations found in Core Collections for Children and Young Adults will make you want to read each and every title that the authors included. The authors, Schwedt and DeLong, have gathered together a list of 355 books that have significantly contributed to the children’s and young adult literature. Being an award-winning book was one criterion that the authors used to identify which of the more current titles were significant enough for inclusion. Most were published after 1994. A chapter on classic titles includes books that have remained in publication for over fifty years even though they may never have received an award. Other than these criteria, the authors do not make it clear how they made the final selections for inclusion. The authors, one a librarian and the other a professor of English and children’s literature, have experience in creating lists of children’s books and indicate that any books included in their 1997 book, Core Collection for Small Libraries: An Annotated Bibliography of Books for Children and Young Adults, would be excluded from this book. This does raise the question as to whether the book really provides a core collection. Therefore, both books should be considered together when evaluating or building a collection. The authors also indicate that they have excluded some titles that have received extensive media attention, another core collection question mark.

The authors provide some excellent descriptive information about each title. For each book, the authors give a full citation, although they do not mention how long each book is. A list of awards that a book has won is given, as well as a list of the character themes found in the book; and a list of other subjects the book covers is also given. What really stand out are the annotations for the books. Not only are they very well written in bringing out the story, they also frequently include additional details about the book. Schwedt and DeLong explain how the illustrations were constructed or how they help the story. They tell if there are other books that would complement the specific book and if there is additional supporting information provided in the book. The authors also provide some warnings about language and sensitive themes. In some cases, they give background on the author of the book. Although the annotations give a wealth of information in so few lines, they entice you with but never reveal the final outcomes of the books.

The books are arranged in eight chapters that deal with a different genre: classics, contemporary fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, nonfiction, picture books, poetry, and traditional literature. Each chapter begins with a concise description of the genre and various subgenres and goes on to explain how they are unique in children and young adult literature. Background is also given on the kinds of awards given for the genre and why. The classics chapter is full of very familiar titles, although one should look to the authors’ first book to round out this area. The traditional literature chapter, the shortest chapter, also holds many older titles. As one might expect, the picture book chapter, the longest chapter, contains mostly books for the youngest grades. The picture books included also cover a range of genres. The contemporary fiction chapter provides a range of realistic stories that showcase a variety of people or animals facing many different challenges or dealing with different kinds of people. The chapter on fantasy is short, although the range of characters and situations is very broad. Several of the fantasy titles are recognizable as movies. The historical fiction section places the characters in the context of real events or around a real location or person as the characters struggle, overcome, or learn about themselves or others. Nonfiction titles tell about people, places, and things, both current and historical. The poetry books are both compilations of others’ works and poetry solely by the author. Throughout all of the chapters, the books cover a range of different character themes presented in many different situations and brought out by characters of different age, ethnicity, and ability.

The authors provide four indices to help the reader. First is an author, title, illustrator, and translator index that is very helpful since the chapters were arranged by genre. Second is a book awards index, because most of the books have won at least one award. Some state specific awards do not include the state name so a "see" reference is provided to direct the reader from the state name to the appropriate award from that state. Third is an index of the character themes of the books. Not only can this index help with finding which books have a specific character theme to them, the index also gives a broad overview of the different kinds of themes utilized in children’s books as well as which were the most and least common. Much longer than the character themes index is the related subjects index, which is the fourth index. What is lacking is an index that lists which books are appropriate for specific grades. The authors made it a point to suggest in the citation which grades each book was appropriate for, but they relegated the reader to hunt through each page to find a grade-appropriate book.

Overall, the book is very well organized and easy to read. When looking for a succinct list of books, especially considering how many children’s books are published, it does provide a solid list of current award-winning titles that are interesting, entertaining, and frequently inspirational. Although it can stand alone, it may best be used in conjunction with the authors’ previous book.—Mark E. Shelton, Harvard University.