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May 7, 2009 by Travis Jonker

Tell Me What You Really Think: Recommended and Best New Books Explained

May 7, 2009 by Travis Jonker   4 comments

1241659868

I started the *Recommended* and *Best New Books* categories to make things easier for readers and book buyers to find out which titles I think are worth spending their time and money on.

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I’m a school librarian (or Library/Media Specialist if you’re feeling 21st Century) and I find these sorts of guides helpful when purchasing books for the schools where I work. School Library Journal has the starred review, so I have my much less authoritative clone.

It seems like lately I’ve been Recommending and Best New Booking quite a few titles so I wanted to reiterate how I decide to put a book into one of these categories. I also wanted to make it clear that I don’t just slap these monikers on any old thing that shows up in my mailbox. I thought this might help.

I begin by stoking a fire. After it’s roaring, I place my antique metal *Recommended* brand on the flames and wait 20 minutes. Then I turn on my tattoo machine (what, you don’t have one?).

If I intend on buying the book I’m reviewing to put in one of the libraries where I work, it gets branded “R” as recommended.

brandingimg

After the pain and swelling has subsided, and if I feel a Recommended book has something special that makes it stand above the rest, I tattoo it a *Best New Book*.

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The whole process is permanent and very traumatizing.

To review, both *Recommended* and *Best New Books* are titles that I like enough to purchase (and by I, I mean “I, with the help of my school library budget”), so if you like my taste, you can be rest assured that I’m putting my (and by “my” I mean “my school district’s”) money where my mouth is.

(To Image: ‘Pages of a book‘
www.flickr.com/photos/12836528@N00/2443042488)

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About Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.

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Comments

  1. Emily says

    May 7, 2009 at 11:36 am

    Perhaps the kids at your school would like a turn with the poker – I’ve heard small children and red hot iron go well together. If they read a book they could get to sear their initials onto it – much more exciting than those old cards where you wrote your name in pencil when you checked it out. Which I suppose they don’t really have anymore as there are now magic computer machines…

  2. Kelly says

    May 8, 2009 at 7:42 am

    LOL!

    With the cards, my (very digital/modern) public library still puts them in new books. I have no idea why! I should ask a L/MS sometime… 🙂

  3. tanie biuro t?umacze? katowice says

    December 30, 2015 at 10:49 am

    idealne polecam dobre katowice dobre

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