Teen Book Reviews

Here's How It Works

You can receive 2 volunteer hours for telling us what you think of a book you read from Winter Park Public Library's teen book or e-book collection.

The book you choose to review must meet certain criteria:

  1. You must be a member of the Winter Park Library Teen Book Guild
  2. Be sure to check the Teen Book Guild blog first before deciding on which book to read and review. If someone has already written a review for that book, please choose another.
  3. The book you choose must be available in our teen book or e-book collection. To verify, check your title online for the collection code "2nd Floor - Young Adult Dept." If you are reading from our e-book collection, make sure one of its subject headings is "Young Adult Fiction" or "Young Adult Nonfiction".
  4. The review you write must be in your own words. Reviews copied from another source will not be accepted.
  5. Your submitted review will be evaluated using the scoring rubric below. The librarian will read your review and post it online if it receives an average rubric score of 3 or higher. If you see your review online, this means that you earned your volunteer hours. Please allow a maximum of 14 days turnaround time.

Scoring Rubric

Score of 4 = First paragraph has a "grabber" or catchy beginning.
Score of 3 = First paragraph has a weak "grabber".
Score of 2 = A catchy beginning was attempted but was confusing rather than catchy.
Score of 1 = No attempt was made to catch the reader's attention in the first paragraph.

Score of 4 = The basic summary of the book was given in a creative manner without giving away the ending.
Score of 3 = The basic summary of the book was presented without giving away the ending
Score of 2 = The basic summary was given as a list of events that includes no transitions
Score of 1 = The summary included events that went beyond the basic plot of the book. Sentences are short, choppy and have no transitions. Spoilers were given.

Score of 4 = There is a paragraph stating your opinion on one or more of these points: character, setting, plot, conflict or author's style. Your opinion is supported with examples from the book.
Score of 3 = There is a paragraph stating your opinion, but it is not supported by examples from the book.
Score of 2 = There is a paragraph talking about the literary items, but no opinion is offered.
Score of 1 = There is no evaluation.

Score of 4 = There is a paragraph stating why you would or would not recommend this book based on one or more of these ideas: author's style, theme, moral or lesson of the book, personal connections you made with the book. Suggestions for similar titles is also a plus.
Score of 3 = There is a recommendation of the book based on one of the ideas, but it is not well supported.
Score of 2 = There is a recommendation, but it is unclear what it is based on.
Score of 1 = here is no recommendation

(Type your review directly into the box below, or cut and paste from a word processing program.)