9 Resources for Finding Great Children’s Books

February 22, 2023 byEmily Ewen

4 min to read

A father is reading a good book to his two daughters

Kids’ desire to read often falls across a spectrum—some are bookworms always looking for their next title, while others are more reluctant. No matter where your student falls, there’s no doubt that reading is an important tool for learning and development. From language and writing skills to peer interaction, reading opens up entire new worlds for kids. Reading is also an important complement to online learning or a blended learning curriculum.

Looking for advice on how to find books for your students? There are plenty of children’s book websites and apps to try—whether you’re encouraging your child to get into books or keeping up with an avid reader. Check out these 11 book finder resources to spark the joy of reading in your students. You might even find a few tools to support your own reading endeavors!

We Are Bookish
We Are Bookish provides personalized recommendations based on the books you’ve already read. Start by creating an account and adding your favorites to your shelf. Then go through your recommendations to find new titles. Older students can manage their own accounts, but parents will need to use the site on behalf of a younger child.
Connections Academy’s Diverse Reading Lists - by Grade Level
These reading lists were compiled by Connections Academy® teachers, librarians, and curriculum specialists, and they include fiction, folklore, history, poetry, biographies, drama, and more. Better yet, we’ve made updates to these lists to include important topics and represent a wide range of diverse authors.
The Best Children’s Books
Formed by a family of teachers, this site lists popular children’s books by subject. For example, you can find books about punctuation, fossils, and ancient Egypt.
Goodreads
Students in middle school and high school may enjoy using Goodreads, which is both a site and app that encourages interaction. Users can write reviews, track books they have read and want to read, join book groups, take quizzes, and more.
New Children’s Books
Find the latest books for children at the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) website, which offers a list of notable children’s books each year.
“100 Best Children’s Books” by Time
Looking for a challenge? See how many books on this list you can read with your child in a year. For older children, look at the list of the 100 best chapter books.
Best Children’s Books by Amazon
If you don’t want to browse lists to find books, then try sorting through the bestsellers and top-rated books on Amazon’s curated list of best children’s books for the year page. They include young adult and editor’s picks as well.
Scholastic Book Search
This tool makes it easy to find books by topic. Type in a keyword and then filter the results by age, genre, and book type. Below the search box, you can also find a variety of lists where you can conveniently sort by age to get kids reading books in school.
International Children’s Digital Library
Did you know kids can read books for free online? The International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) offers hundreds of books in different languages. It gives children a safe place to find books, although you may have to help your child start a search.

An online student reading books for children.

As with other online tools, parents need to check out the resources and monitor their children’s choices. As your children mature, you’ll know how independent they can be in choosing books both online and off-line. Someday the roles may reverse, and they’ll be recommending books for you to read!

Once your child starts the habit of reading, you can continue improving their literacy by checking out this list of strategies for reading comprehension.