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Notable Social Studies Trade Book (NSSTB) lists include books selected annually by the Book Review Committee of the National Council for the Social Studies in conjunction with the Children’s Book Council. These lists are excellent resources for teachers who use children’s literature to support social studies instruction in their classrooms. We report our analysis of award-winning titles for primary grades published from 2001-2011. Biographies and books that address topics about families are featured as a starting place for primary grades teachers to begin incorporating NSSTB into their social studies instruction. We conclude by suggesting ways for primary grade teachers to utilize the book lists each year.

This is the 11th volume in the Advances in Research on Teaching series, and the second to address teacher education and professional development. The previous volume (Brophy, 2004) focused specifically on the use of video in those contexts. This volume casts a much broader net, looking at studies of a variety of teacher education and professional development issues. The studies were selected to offer contrasts in the types of informants who provided the data, the methods used to collect the data, and the means chosen for representing and communicating what was found.

This book was organized to illustrate some of the affordances and constraints of contrasting methodological approaches to qualitative research on teaching (who provides the information, how the information is gathered, and how the findings are represented). The differing perspectives, methods, and forms of representation in the included studies complement one another to enrich our insights about teachers, as they progress from applying to teacher education programs through various stages of completion of these programs to continuing their development as professionals. In addition to these methodological insights, however, the chapters offer a variety of substantive findings that will inform the work of teacher educators, including many that reinforce or otherwise connect with one another.