Last week a good friend and library patron asked me to recommend some books for her grandson. She told me his age and his favorite book; she wanted to get him something for Christmas that he would enjoy as much as the series of books he had just read.

This is a common question, and rightfully so—especially if you don’t make a habit of reading books that would interest pre-teen boys! Luckily I do read those books, so I was able to help her (I hope) with a list of titles that he might enjoy. But her request got me thinking: why didn’t I think to mention NoveList Plus for K-8?

NoveList Plus for K-8 is a wonderful database that you can access through the library’s web page. Go to www.pocahontaslibrary.org , click on ‘Collections’ and then click the link for Info Depot. You’ll find it there.

Let’s say you have a child on your Christmas list, and being a smart person, you want to give the gift of books and reading. But what to choose?

Once you are on the home page, look to the left. You will see age divisions of 0-8, 9-12 and Teen. Select the correct age, and browse titles. It’s that easy! If you know of a book or series that the child enjoyed, do a search for the title, author or series. Your results list will show a brief description of each book written by that author, or in the series you searched. At the bottom of each description, you will see three links: Author read-alikes, Title read-alikes and Series read-alikes. Clicking on any one of these links will bring up a list of other books that are similar to the book you searched. There’s your shopping list, easy as can be!

You can also narrow your results. If you look to the left of your results screen, you will be able to select to narrow the choices down by Genre, Subject, Location, Storyline and more.

You can create an account in NoveList which will enable you to move books into a folder and save them. That way, if you are doing numerous searches, you will have all your results at your fingertips.

Don’t forget - there is a NoveList Plus for adults too! It works on the same principle. You can search for titles for yourself; things you might enjoy reading if you like, say, “Gone with the Wind” or “The Help.”

Hopefully this will take the headache out of shopping for the readers on your list. Enjoy!