This guide will help readers' advisors understand what teens appreciate about their favorite genres while also serving as a helpful collection development tool.

A fast-growing area in fiction for the young, genre blends allow for new possibilities and ideas, stimulating children's imaginations. This helpful guide orients readers' advisory staff, educators, and collection development librarians with a hand-picked selection of hybrid genres and novels published since 2000. It's no wonder that genre blends are some of most popular books for children and teens. When you mash up two different traditional genres, it's like doubling what makes each one pleasurable on its own. This guide, the first of its kind, will help public and school librarians, teachers, and collections staff identify genre blends for readers' advisory, curriculum development, or creating core collections. Profiling more than 200 titles, inside its pages you'll learn about six of the most in-demand genre blends for young readers, including Fantasy Mysteries, Magical Realism, Steampunk, and Verse Novels; be introduced to each genre blend's most compelling novels and contemporary authors; understand both book appeal factors (such as genre and theme) and reader-appeal factors, assisting you in matching readers with the perfect book; receive guidance on finding genre blends for children who are facing difficult circumstances, such as their parents' divorce, cliques in school, lack of popularity, poor body image, or self-blame; and find what you're looking for quickly and efficiently with the help of succinct annotations and a thorough index.

More than simply a vital collection development tool, this book can help librarians help young adults grow into the kind of independent readers and thinkers who will flourish at college.

Genre fiction has always been a complex mixture of themes and elements. The increasing popularity of “genre blends,” or fiction that straddles the traditional labels, means greater pleasure for readers but a greater challenge for readers’ advisory. In this informative and entertaining book McArdle gets library staff up to speed on these engaging titles, showing how such crossover fiction appeals to fanbases of multiple genres. Complete with booklists, summaries, read-alikes, and thorough indexes, this guide Covers suspense, fantasy, historical fiction, horror, mystery, romance, and science fiction, as well as non-genre titles that don’t neatly fit into any categoriesOffers guidance for shelving, displaying, and marketing genre blendsShows how to make the most of online discovery tools in cataloging these titlesIncludes “Blend MVPs,” a section spotlighting several popular authors who regularly move between genres, and a useful bibliography of additional resources Providing a unique look at how common genres are often combined, this guide will open up new worlds of fiction to readers’ advisors and those whom they serve.

Covering everything from getting to know a library’s materials to marketing and promoting RA, this practical handbook will help you expand services immediately without adding costs or training time.

Young Adult Resources Today: Connecting Teens with Books, Music, Games, Movies, and More is the first comprehensive young adult library services textbook specifically written for today’s multidimensional information landscape. The authors integrate a research-focused information behavior approach with a literature-focused resources approach, and bring together in one volume key issues related to research, theory, and practice in the provision of information services to young adults. Currently, no single book addresses both YA information behaviors and information resources in any detail; instead, books tend to focus on one and give only cursory attention to the other. Key features of this revolutionary book include its success in: Integrating theory, research, and practice Integrating implications for practice throughout the book Integrating knowledge of resources with professional practice as informed by research Integrating both print and electronic formats throughout—within the resource chapters (including websites and social media) Latham and Gross accomplish all this while, paying particular attention to the socially constructed nature of young adulthood, diversity, YA development, and multiple literacies. Their coverage of information landscapes covers literature (with detailed coverage of both genres and subgrenres), movies, magazines, web sites, social media, and gaming. The final chapter cover navigating information landscapes, focusing on real and virtual YA spaces, readers’ advisory, programming, and collaboration. Special attention is paid to program planning and evaluation.

This compilation of 97 biographical essays celebrates public and school library service to children and young adults through the professional lives and contributions of its pioneers and leaders. Devoted entirely to the field of youth library services, the essays represent both outstanding librarians in the field, as well as those whose work has made significant contributions supporting the work of professional youth librarians. Sketches include modern-day workers, spanning the late 19th century until 1999. Will inspire young people as it underscores the continuing importance of youth library services.

A guide to help readers' advisors serve teens. Offers techniques to connect with teens on their own terms, provides tips on creating a positive advisory experience, and includes "sure bets" lists, thematic reading lists, and sources of reviews.

Teen advisory groups (TAGs) may flourish in many libraries today, but many others are newly initiating them or hoping to revitalize ones that are floundering. But even successful groups need tips and best practices to make their TAGs even better. This updated and revised second edition remains the go-to guide for planning, running, and evaluating TAGs in both school and public libraries. Its wealth of positive advice and information leads TAG teens and their peers to meaningful experiences that encourage reading, library use, and library support—into adulthood. In this indispensable guide, Diane P. Tuccillo carefully explains and explores the current, wide landscape of TAGs, covering funding to bylaws; getting a new group on its feet to rejuvenating an old one; planning traditional TAG projects to creating unique roles; and community involvement to voting on adult library boards. Vivid profiles of successful teen groups, organized into public and school library sections, tell each group’s story along with pertinent teen feedback. Sample documents covering mission statements, applications, parent permission forms, publicity flyers, and teen book review ideas, as well as evaluation advice, can be borrowed or adapted. A helpful bibliography and webliography is included. Library directors, school administrators, library educators, and librarians who work directly with teens in school and public libraries will be unable to resist such compelling testaments to the value of TAGs.

Emphasizing an appreciation for street lit as a way to promote reading and library use, Morris’s book helps library staff establish their “street cred” by giving them the information they need to provide knowledgeable guidance.