Well, it's official. Scholastic Books has finally broken through with a quality application. The Book Wizard is an extremely friendly and, I'm finding, reliable tool for determining some of the vitals about books. For too many years I felt frustrated by the density and improper categorization of the Scholastic website. It was always a fine place to buy books and then not much more useful beyond that. Finally, it's changed.
Want to know the reading and interest level of Gary Paulsen's book Lawn Boy? Plug in the title and up pops a succinct window of information. (Lawn Boy comes out with an interest level of grades 3-5 and a reading level of 4.5.) Or, maybe you're curious about all of Gary Paulsen's written works. Place his name in the Book Wizard window and presto! All 100 of his works arise. By scanning the page anyone can see that he writes within a fair range of reading levels from grades 3-8. Yes, other sites do this in a similar manner, but what they don't have are some of the additional, useful, bells and whistles that follow:
Along with interest and reading levels, each book is categorized by genre and topic. This is a very relevant item which many other book sites either do not offer or do not do particularly well. Again, examining Lawn Boy we learn that it falls under the genre of realistic fiction as well as comedy and humor. The latter description is a pleasant bonus many sites won't bother to give. The topics associated with Lawn Boy are jobs, careers, work resourcefulness, and sports. Now, that is a feature I can truly appreciate when I do not have a familiarity with a book.
Scholastic Books also adds a if-you-like-this-book-then-you'll-enjoy-this-book search window common to movies and music sites. Amazon rose to power with its ability to cross-compare books and make decent suggestions of other titles that could interest its customers. Now Scholastic has done the same also allowing its users to adjust the grade level difficulty at the same time. Was Lawn Boy fun but too easy? Push that meter up a grade or two and new suggestions arise. Nice!
So, if you're not quite clear about the nature, difficulty, or how well a book might match with your child, run it through the Book Wizard and enjoy the magic. This site can easily be used by your child independently, which is another great approach to satisfying the customer.
This is without a doubt my favorite tool for checking out the appropriateness of books for particular students by age and interest...until the next best thing comes along.
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