Juvenile (K-12) Collection: Welcome!

In early 2025 the Marriott Library's Juvenile Collection, which had been located on the north side of Level 3, just outside the Family Reading Room, was moved in order to be able to increase the amount of student study space available on that floor. Most of the books published prior to 2005 were placed in the library's Automated Retrieval Center (ARC), from which they can easily be recalled. The remainder of the collection is now located in the northeast corner of Level 2. They are arranged using the Dewey Decimal Classification system, with call numbers running from 001 through 999. The Juvenile Collection has books for a wide variety of ages, from beginning readers through young adults (high school and beyond), fiction and non-fiction alike.  If you don't find what you're looking for, please contact Robert Behra or use the Suggest a Purchase form.

Information on using the library's catalog can be found in the Usearch guide.  One useful way for finding children's and young-adult titles in the catalog is the Collection facet, on the right side of the screen when looking at search results in the catalog -- clicking on Juvenile Collection will restrict the display to items in the collection on Level 2, while clicking on ARC Dewey Collection will show items in the ARC (though not necessarily from the Juvenile Collection).  While this should work for most of the titles intended for children, it won't necessarily work for titles intended for young adults, some of which may be in the general collection.

Another approach is to search by subject.  Useful headings include Children's literature (for "collections of works published for children, including literary works, nonliterary works, or both") and the corresponding subheading Juvenile literature used under other subjects (places, people, organizations, groups, topical headings), Children's plays (and the subheading Juvenile drama), Children's stories (and the subjeading Juvenile fiction), and Children's poetry (and the subheading Juvenile poetry).  Others include Children's books (for "works on books for children considered as physical objects") and Children--Books and reading (for "works on the reading interests of children or books recommended for children").  The corresponding headings for young adults are Young adult literature, Young adult drama, Young adult fiction, Young adult poetry and Young adults--Books and reading.

To find foreign-language materials in the Juvenile Collection do a subject search for "French language materials" ("Spanish language materials", "German language materials", "Chinese language materials", etc.), and once the results are displayed use the Collection facet to restrict the results to the Juvenile Collection.

If you prefer to browse the shelves rather than use the catalog, it helps to have a call number to get started.  In the Juvenile Collection, fiction for younger children, usually heavily illustrated, is generally found at 372.412, in alphabetical order by author and not broken down by the nationality of the author or the language of the book.  At that number you will find over 3000 picture books in alphabetical order by author on Level 2 (another 8000 are available in the ARC).  Fiction for older children and young adults is also available in the collection: by American authors (813...), British authors (823...), German-speaking authors (833...), French-speaking authors (843...), Italian-speaking authors (853...), Spanish-speaking authors (863...), etc. Individual biographies, in alphabetical order by subject, can be found at 921.  Cartoons, comic books and graphic novels can be found between 741.5 and 741.6, while books on dinosaurs can be found between 567.9 and 568.2.  There are basic guides to the Dewey Decimal Classification on the ends of the shelving ranges in the Juvenile Collection.

In the Library of Congress Classification, used for most of the rest of the library's materials, some children's books can be found between PZ5 and PZ90, in the regular collection (east side of Level 1; includes a number of titles in Yiddish, Arabic and Hebrew).  The call numbers corresponding to the subject heading Children--Books and reading are Z1037 and Z1038 (south end of Level 1), and you can find works on library service to children between Z718.1 and Z718.3.  Books about juvenile literature can be found between PN1008.2 and PN1009.5 and at PN3443, while books about writing children's books can be found at PN147.5 (all of these in compact shelving on the east side of Level 1).

If you're looking for children's books that can be read online, try the following: