URL bit.ly/49J2FYV

Grade Level PreS–Gr 8

Cost Contact EBSCO for a customized quote
 

Overview “What can I read next?” is music to most librarians’ ears, but effective readers’ advisory and keeping current with books in a series can be a daunting task. NoveList K-8 Plus, which draws from a subset of records in EBSCO’s NoveList database, received a refresh in the summer of 2025, updating its almost 200,000 titles with a wealth of librarian-curated review tags, notes, and book lists. The update also added search options and filtering tools to help librarians, patrons, and caregivers look for themed lists; series information, and read-alikes based on elements like identities, appeal, audience, and reading levels for picture books through YA across both fiction and nonfiction.

Review metadata can be shared and printed within a session, with further options, such as save, add to project, and alerts available when a free MyEBSCO account is created.
 

Content NoveList K-8 Plus draws from 198,000 books, roughly 65 percent fiction and 35 percent nonfiction, appealing to a prereading audience through middle school, including curriculum classics. Along with tens of thousands of books published since 2000, results include Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, a adaptations, and poetry collections from Shel Silverstein and Langston Hughes.

One of NoveList K-8 Plus’s greatest strengths is the wealth of searchable themes and appeal terms to mix and match. Explanations of why titles appear on the lists or were selected as potential read-alikes are also noted. Searching for specific themes, like “trouble at home” or “robots with emotions,” paired with appeal factors like “upbeat” or “darkly humorous,” will help users hit their mark. NoveList’s team of librarians apply tags in broad categories (subject, genre), more granular appeal terms (fast-paced, funny, sarcastic), and themes (First day of school, Monster academies). Advanced search filters include author background, Dewey range, and AR and Lexile reading levels.

The Curated Lists menu offers about 100 librarian-developed grab-and-go lists, highlighting Best Of choices along with Trending Now (Celebrity Authors, Slice-of-Life Graphic Novels), For Fans Of... (Bluey, “The Baby-Sitters Club”), and other options.

If administrators set up the option to link to the library catalog, results will indicate whether a title is held by the library—a collection development time-saver for purchasing decisions and a boon for patrons searching the shelves.
 

Educator Ease of Use/Visual Appeal Bright book cover thumbnails are displayed throughout. The appearance adapts across devices. The homepage highlights curated lists, search buttons for story elements (cinematic, stories in rhyme), and Start Browsing links (award winners, book club best bets). For those who have an idea of what they are looking for, a search field remains pinned in the same location across pages. The left menu offers indexes to appeal, theme, and genre terms, along with background information and readable breakdowns explaining the unique story elements implemented by NoveList K-8 Plus. A “How Do I?” menu links to tutorials and recorded webinars. Articles (“Genre Guide: Manga for Older Kids”), series book information, and a user dashboard are also accessed via the left menu. Lists can be emailed and printed during a session. Creating a MyEBSCO account allows users to create and save Projects, such as book club ideas or thematics lists and create alerts for new series entries or new works by an author.

With practice, using the Advanced Search option can yield highly targeted results, such as searching for graphic novels with appeal factors of “action-packed” and “witty,” then filtering for “offbeat mood” and “starred review.” Clicking into the detail for one of the search results returned, Tom Angleberger’s Two Headed Chicken, yields further details, other appeal terms, suggestions for read-alikes and why they were chosen, and a link to information on the author. Detail records also include the Goodreads star rating, and in some cases, text from professional review sources.

With a little practice, searches can be finely honed to produce niche results. Plus, librarian-written Genre Guides are detailed and insightful.
 

Student Ease of Use/Visual Appeal NoveList K-8 Plus is designed to be patron facing, and schools could choose to promote it for student use. With some initial instruction, older middle school students can independently explore for titles that are “gossipy,” “sardonic,” and “feel-good” or Christian fiction featuring “test of faith” published within the last five years, or New Zealand poetry or nonfiction read-alikes for Amy Klobuchar’s Nevertheless We Persisted: 48 Stories of Defiance, Strength and Courage. Younger readers could use curated lists to spark ideas or look for books by a favorite author or in a favorite series.
 

Verdict Recommending books and supporting curriculum with engaging content is a must for school librarians. NoveList K-8 Plus’s deep and well-organized information and thoroughly descriptive, regularly updated access terms for almost 200,000 children’s books make this a highly recommended tool for school and public libraries.

Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX.