When I posted My Best Posts On Books: Why They’re Important & How To Help Students Select, Read, Write & Discuss Them , I had forgotten to include the section on book reviews that was in The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience”.
I’ve now added this to that books post:
Book reviews are great writing opportunities. ELL teacher Jennifer Duarte had some challenges having her students write ones for Amazon (not least of which being you have to buy something before they let you publish a review). Shelfari, though, seems like a very reasonable alternative. Students can create their own virtual bookshelf and write reviews of them.
Library Thing is similar to Shelfari, and is another good place for writing book reviews. Book Army is another review site.
Another great site for kids (or anyone) to publish book reports is GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/. A number of authors use this site and users can follow favorite authors. Reading groups invite discussion of specific interests/genres. Both Shelfari and GoodReads also offer widgets for webpages.