Book Review Worksheets, Pointers, and Creative Ideas

Teacher Tools: Book Review Worksheets

I would be happy to email you a January Save Everything! (and the Picture Book) printable flyer, which includes the list of books and the six easy steps to participating in Save the World! (and the Picture Book.) I can also send you a printable book review worksheet for very young or older kids. Please email me at authorbheos@gmail.com.

Traditional Book Review Pointers

To write a basic book review, follow these steps:

1. Include the title, author's and illustrator's names, publisher, and publication date.

2. Write a brief summary.

3. Write what, specifically you like about the book. Did it teach you something new? Make you think about something in a new way? Make you feel a certain way?

4. Add what, if anything, you would have liked to be different about the book. Additional information? Something explained more clearly? A different cover?

5. Say who you think would enjoy this book the most.

6. Try to set aside personal biases. For instance, you might prefer serious stories. Funny stories aren't your thing. Or maybe the reverse it true. You think any story worth its salt should make you lolrofl. You are certainly entitled to your likes and dislikes! But try to decide not just whether you like the book, but whether it is a good book. (And whether other kids would like it.)

Creative Book Review Ideas

1. Make a book trailer. This is like a movie preview, only it's about a book.

2. Write your review comic book style, which book reviewer Travis Jonker sometimes does at 100 Scope Notes.


3. Write your review as a letter to the author.

4. Write your review picking up themes from the book. For example, for Here Comes the Garbage Barge, by Jonah Winter and Red Nose Studio, write the review on something recycled, like a cereal box. Or for When It's Six O'Clock in San Francisco: a Trip Through Time Zones, by Cynthia Jaynes Omololu and Randy DuBurke, write the review in a circle, making a clock.