Teen Titles

Teen Titles is a really honest book review magazine for teenagers by teenagers. It is proudly made in Edinburgh and is proof of what amazing things can be done when Students, School Librarians and the Publications Team work together!

The librarians on the team are John Clarkson (co-editor), Moira Paton (co-editor), Lucrezia Gaion, Julie Sutherland, Kelly Smith, Steven Hume, Tomi Adenekan, Andrea Wallace and Lindsay Nealon. Nicola Brigain manages the Publications Team side, handling the subscriptions, adverts, design, layouts and permissions. The magazine has been reviewing books for Young Adults since the 1990s and we produce 3 issues a year.

Publishers send us out recently published and/or advance copies, these are divided up to the team who then write short blurbs and further divide up the books to 2 or 3 other schools, ensuring that every City of Edinburgh Council secondary school has new titles. Students in these schools are then invited and encouraged to read these books and tell us what they think. These reviews are then published, warts and all, ensuring that our young people’s voices are well and truly heard!”

Each issue usually features an author interview or two. Interviews are conducted by Edinburgh school students face to face or via email.

Readers can join in by sending in their own book reviews to our Readers Write section.

The magazine is arranged by genre: Focus on Family, Teen Issues, Thrillers and Chillers, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Past Times, Just For Laughs and Fact Packed

Books that we picked out as being more suitable for older readers have a 15+ logo.

Titles we think of as Bibliotherapy books that can help readers improve their mental health and emotional wellbeing have an ‘Escape Connect Relate’ logo

We aim to promote reading in a fun way that will appeal to young people.

For librarians, it is a great ordering tool for the newest young adult titles.

The reviews are written by Edinburgh teenagers and are honest and unedited and reflect exactly what the teenager thought. You can trust it!

Here are 5 ways you can use Teen Titles to find something good to read;

1) The reviews are arranged by genre so you can flip straight to your preferred genre.

2) If you don’t know what to read next, flip through the magazine and find 5 books you like the look of, then ask your school librarian to reserve a copy for you. Most Edinburgh school librarians use Teen Titles when ordering new library books so you should find that many of the books reviewed are on the shelves in your school.

3) Turn to the back page and see if anyone you know has reviewed a book, and ask your Librarian if you can borrow it/them.

4) Turn straight to the cover book which is flagged up on the front cover of each issue. Do the reviews make you want to read it?

5) Look at who have been interviewed in the latest issue. Read the interviews to find out if their latest book is something you’d be interested in.

If you are a member of Edinburgh Libraries, all the ebook and audiobook versions of titles reviewed in the latest issue of Teen Titles are just one click away and you can access them all here

Here is our latest issue and you can find back issues here