Children's Literature: Articles & e-Journals

Guide to beginning research in children's and young adult literature

Searching for Articles

Use databases to find citations (and sometimes full text) to articles and other materials. The following databases are good places to search for articles about children's literature published in both scholarly journals and popular magazines. Some databases also include references to other materials, such as books, book chapters, and dissertations.

For additional databases in related disciplines such as English literature or Comparative literature, see Articles & Research Databases.

Starting points for Children's Literature research

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Indexes some literary criticism and education journals and some of the Children's/Young Adult review periodicals.
MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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Covers some of the literature & folklore journals of interest to scholars of children's literature.

More Databases for Children's Literature Research

Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
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Full text literary biographies, journal articles, critical essays, and an encyclopedia of literary terms.
Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
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This database Includes full-text excerpts from the best criticism on major literary figures and nonfiction writers of all periods. Includes the Children's Literature Review.
Literature Online This link opens in a new window
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Fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 192 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources. Includes some articles about children's literature.
ERIC (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Indexes some literary criticism and education journals and some of the Children's/Young Adult review periodicals.
Education Source This link opens in a new window
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Journal articles in the field of education; despite its name, the database is not entirely fulltext.
Library & Information Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Indexes articles from library and information science journals, with an emphasis on journals published in the United Kingdom and countries other than the United States. Covers 1969 to the present.
Library and Information Science Source This link opens in a new window
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Covers more than 200 library and information-science journals, and more than 600 books per year, from December 1984 to the present. Emphasis is on journals published in the United States.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Covers academic journal articles, conference papers, and dissertations in sociology, including the social function of books for children.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
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Citation index for the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

Children's Lit e-Journals

The Lion & the Unicorn
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Scholarly discussion of literature for children.
The Horn Book Magazine
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Bimonthly, contains articles and columns about children’s books and book reviews.
Children's Literature Association Quarterly
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Scholarship in children's literature studies
Journal of Children's Literature
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Includes scholarly and practical articles and booklists.
Children's Literature
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Annual publication featuring scholarship and research
Bookbird
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Publication of the International Board on Books for Young People