Many of the 23 full-text children's magazines in the database are valuable tools for researching current events and some science topics. However, some of the best periodicals for elementary curriculum unit coverage are, at the time of this review, only available in abstract form. The three professional journals that are in full text can be searched by article type, which is wonderful for looking up book reviews in Horn Book or thematic units in Teaching PreK-8. One of the nicest features of this program is its use of color and symbol coding to indicate an article's level of difficulty. The reading and content level of all the material has been ranked as easy, intermediate, challenging, or professional.
Students can search by subject, keyword, or by parts of the bibliographic record.
When compared to the print indexes to children's magazines, clearly the Readers' Guide for Young People can provide several time-saving features. The full-text articles may be marked and printed out or copied to a diskette in a few easy steps. Abstracted articles often provide enough information to let the researcher know if he or she should bother spending time looking for a print copy of the magazine. However, when compared to some of the other full-text products on the market, the Readers' Guide for Young People falls a little short in content. The editors need to add more full-text resources that cover a wider range of the curriculum as well as a way to access the illustrations for the articles that they do have.