• Click on "Create a page" at the right side of the screen.

• Choose Book Review Template.

• Click  "Create new page."

• Start typing! 

• The suggested headings in the Book Review Template are Bibliographical information, Brief summary, Comments, Age/Grade level, and Cautions. You can see the page for Jean Little, Mine for Keeps as a sample. For want of a better term, I've used "Cautions" as a way to address issues parents and teachers might want to know about in advance. This might mean sex and violence or it might mean plot elements that could be troubling to kids in specific situations. For example, on the Mine for Keeps page I've noted that the protagonist's older sister has good intentions but doesn't come across all that well. A child I know who has a disabled younger sibling found this hard to read. While it would be great to have all of this information for each book, it's also fine to put in partial information. Other participants can always add material later.
• I've just added a new heading as an experiment: If you like this book, you might also like . . . I welcome your thoughts on the usefulness of this item.
• When you're done, please sign your page by replacing reviewer name in the template with your name.  You can use your full name or just your first name, if you prefer.

• When you've finished, click the "Save" button at the bottom of your editing screen to save your page and post it to the wiki.

   

 Link to the page:

• Once you've created your page, create a link to it from the list of books page. Go to the page called Books for Children.

• Click on the "Edit Page" button above the text. You will see an editing screen with a toolbar that resembles the toolbar in a wordprocessor.

• If the book for which you want to create a page is not already on the list, add it to the list by typing its author, title, and publication data.

• Once you've done that, or if the book is already listed, but without a hyperlink, highlight the book title, then click on "Link" in the editing toolbar.

• You will see the following dialogue box:

• Using the menu boxes, select "WikiPage" as link type. Under "Link to wiki page," scroll through the options until you see the name of the page you've created. (Pages are listed in alphabetical order, with the full alphabet in capital letters preceding the alphabet in lowercase.)  Your page name will also pop up in the "Link text" box. In that box, I've been deleting the author's name to leave only the title (e.g. Mine for Keeps).   Then click on the "OK" button.

• Now click on the "Save" button at the bottom of the editing screen to save the list page with your book title added. You should see a link to your new page.

Another option: Creating a page from the list of books page: 

This method lets you create a page by creating a link to it.

Create a link:

• To create a new book page, start at the list of books page. Click on the "Edit Page" button above the text. You will see an editing screen with a toolbar that resembles the toolbar in a wordprocessor.

• If the book for which you want to create a page is not already on the list, add it to the list by typing its author, title, and publication data.

• Once you've done that, or if the book is already listed, but without a hyperlink, highlight the book title, then click on "Link" in the editing toolbar.

• You will see the following dialogue box:

• Using the menu boxes, select "WikiPage" as link type. Enter the author's name and book title in the "New page name" box (e.g. Jean Little, Mine for Keeps). Enter the book's title in the "Link text" box (e.g. Mine for Keeps).   Then click on the "OK" button.

• Now click on the "Save" button at the bottom of the editing screen to save the list page with your book title added.

• The new book title will appear in blue letters underlined in red. This means that you've set up the link, but have not yet created the page.

Creating the page from your link:

• To create the page, click on your new link.  You'll be asked if you want to apply a template. Choose "Book Review Template" and click on "Create new page."

• The suggested headings in the Book Review Template are Bibliographical information, Brief summary, Comments, Age/Grade level, and Cautions. You can see the page for Jean Little, Mine for Keeps as a sample. For want of a better term, I've used "Cautions" as a way to address issues parents and teachers might want to know about in advance. This might mean sex and violence or it might mean plot elements that could be troubling to kids in specific situations. For example, on the Mine for Keeps page I've noted that the protagonist's older sister has good intentions but doesn't come across all that well. A child I know who has a disabled younger sibling found this hard to read. While it would be great to have all of this information for each book, it's also fine to put in partial information. Other participants can always add material later. 
• I've just added a new heading as an experiment: If you like this book, you might also like . . . I welcome your thoughts on the usefulness of this item. 
• When you're done, please sign your page by replacing reviewer name in the template with your name.  You can use your full name or just your first name, if you prefer.
• When you've finished, click the "Save" button at the bottom of your editing screen to save your page and post it to the wiki.

Other features:

Adding tags:

Once you've created and saved your page, you can use the tags feature at the bottom of the page to indicate themes or issues addressed in the book. To add a tag, look at the menu bar below your text. In the left-hand column, you should see the words "no tags yet." Click on the + sign, and you'll get a small box. Type your tags, pressing enter between tags. (This allows you to use multi-word tags.) For example, I've tagged Mine for Keeps with Canada, disability, dogs, cerebral palsy, siblings, chapter books, and moving or changing schools. You can also add tags to existing pages. Here's a list of tags currently used in the wiki. You can also reach that list from the sidebar.

You can also click on "Show tags" in the sidebar, and check off the boxes next to the tags you want to use. When you're done, click "Hide Tags." Your tags won't show until you reload the page. (This is a new feature and I haven't ironed out all its quirks yet, but it's quite cool. The widget was developed by Vu Nguyen of pbwiki, and he helped me fiddle with it so that it looks like a button. Some day it might be a button in the toolbar, but apparently that would take a lot more work.)

Participants page:

I also encourage you to add your name and anything you'd like people to know about you to the list of participants.  

Comments:

Please feel free to use the comments feature to comment on existing pages. You can also use the comments feature or e-mail me if you have questions or suggestions about this page. More information can also be found by clicking on the "Help" button, which takes you to pbwiki's resources and help pages. You can also see their instructions for page creation.