Book Review Templates for Teachers

Give students structure for their book reviews and book reports with printable templates created by teachers for your primary classroom!

The Teach Starter teacher team designed this collection of fun and functional templates to provide a scaffold for students as they embark on the process of writing book reviews and reports, helping them to organise their thoughts. With fun designs and formats, there's something for every student in this teaching resource collection.

Curious about how to use these templates in the classroom? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!

Are a Book Review and a Book Report the Same Thing?

Have you noticed we referred to book reviews and book reports as two distinct items? Some teachers will use these terms interchangeably to mean the same thing — a student's analysis of the text.

Meanwhile, some other teachers draw a line between the two. Here are the differences that typically separate a book review and a book report when the two are treated as two different concepts:

Book Review

• Provides a critical evaluation of a book
• Includes subjective opinions, preferences and judgments about the book
• Informs readers about the book's quality, strengths, weaknesses and overall appeal
• Targets a broad audience, including people who have not read the book
• May include recommendations for a reader
• Provides background information on the text and summarizes the plot

Book Report

• Provide an objective summary rather than including personal opinions
• Describes a book's content in a factual manner
• Presents key plot points, characters and main themes of the book
• Targets a specific audience, such as a teacher

How Do You Structure a Good Book Report?

A book report template is a great scaffold when teaching students the elements of how to write a good book report, providing spaces for important information such as the book title and author's name, as well as a summary of a book's plot and important characters.

A book report template may provide students with other questions to provoke thought about their reading and prompt students to explore everything from thematic elements to their own personal feelings about their reading.

These templates cover the traditional parts most teachers require in their book reports, including:

The collection printables includes templates with interesting shapes and themes to make hunting for that information and collecting it all in one place as fun as the act of reading itself!