Education - Children's and young adult's literature

The purpose of this article is to provide essential criteria that a middle school teacher may use as a guide to self-select appropriate picture books for the content areas of language arts, social studies, science, and mathematics. General factors for consideration include a book's intensity of information, ability to meet high literary standards, and portrayal of diversity. By incorporating picture books in content area classrooms, teachers can provide a wider variety of reading material to enhance their curricula. Teachers should use the elements addressed in this article as guidelines and should consider those that are most appropriate for their purpose, and some guidelines may be applied across content areas.