Children's Literature

You can search our library catalog Educat+ on our website homepage. There are a few ways to go about searching for children’s and youth materials, the first being a title search.

For example, a search for Pura Belpre Award winner Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez:

The results return more than just the book in question. There are many articles and reviews readily available. This can be useful when looking for summaries or opinions on popular titles, but somewhat confusing if all that’s needed is the book itself. Thankfully, the second result is Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, but one method of narrowing down to book- and ebook-only results is through using the limiter for “Resource Type” along the left side of the results page. Selecting Books as the Resource Type and clicking on the green “Apply Filters” button will streamline results to reflect only books.

Many times, a search without a title is necessary. It’s possible to enter phrases like “children’s books” and “juvenile literature” and obtain relevant results. This type of search typically elicits many results -- for example, a search of “children’s literature” in Educat+ with no limiters or modifications returns upwards of 142,000 results -- but there are ways to narrow them down.

The Advanced Search feature can be accessed by clicking on the “Advanced Search” link beneath the main Educat+ search bar on the library’s homepage, or via the “Advanced Search” button available after clicking the “Search Educat+” link on our Resources page.



Advanced Search opens up options for searching the entire catalog, or for specific collections and types of media. Filters are available for searching Children’s Books and Curriculum by clicking on them in a list marked “Search for” at the top of the fields. Boolean fields under “Search filters” can be filled to specify information such as title, author, and more. Drop-down menus on the right side of this interface allow for selecting Material Type - such as books, articles, film, etc. - and Language, as well as Start Date and End Date ranges to view publications made during a certain time period. More information on Educat+ can be found by scrolling down on this landing page.

Though it may seem redundant, a search for “children’s literature” with the Children’s Books filter narrows results drastically when compared with the original unfiltered Educat+ search for the same phrase. Using the Curriculum option offers a different set of results. The same is true for “juvenile literature,” used here because it encompasses a greater variety of results than “children’s literature.”

Further narrowing of the scope can be achieved by using the drop-down menu marked “Any field” and changing the field to Subject, or even by adding another term to a second field; for example, a search containing “juvenile literature” and “flowers.” Changing the Material Type to Books can also refine results prior to clicking the Search button. Between the use of Advanced Search and the limiters along the left side of a page of results, it is possible to drastically narrow results.

The guides on our library blog below detail how to search for Children's and YA materials through two databases to which the library provides access: Ebscohost eBook Collection and Proquest eBook Central. While results from these databases will show up in a general library catalog search, sometimes it can be useful to search directly in the database for different filters and search parameters.