Kids and teens are reading books — but how do they find them?

The Seven Gods of Luck by David KudlerIn a discussion about children’s ebooks on the LinkedIn group Ebooks, Ebook Readers, Digital Books, and Digital Content, two threads emerged that I thought were very interesting: first of all, children’s and young adult books are selling (up 22% in 2012); second of all, someone raised the question of how to encourage kids themselves to review books.

This second point raised a question for me — how do kids find out about books these days? My memory of how it worked back in the pre-digital age was that I’d notice when a friend was carrying a book whose cover I didn’t recognize. So… how do kids find out about/tell each other about books in the twenty-first century? Though paper-and-ink books are still selling well to kids and teens, ebooks are as well, in which case there aren’t any covers to show. (For many readers, this is a positive — no need to show off those embarrassing bodice-ripper or scantily-clad-sword-maiden covers.)

How do the kids you know find out about books? Word of mouth? On-line forums/social networks? Do you know of any good sites where kids exchange opinions on what they’ve read?

I’m posting a poll on the blog page of my site — so you can comment here, post an answer there — or both!

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