Research Article

Exploring Topics and Genres in Storytime Books: A Text Mining Approach

Soohyung Joo

Associate Professor, School of Information Science

University of Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America

Email: soohyung.joo@uky.edu

Erin Ingram

Research Assistant, School of Information Science

University of Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America

Email: erin.ingram@uky.edu

Maria Cahill

Associate Professor, School of Information Science

University of Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America

Email: maria.cahill@uky.edu

Received: 15 Apr. 2021 Accepted: 14 Oct. 2021

2021 Joo, Ingram, and Cahill. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the same or similar license to this one.

DOI: 10.18438/eblip29963

Abstract

Objective – While storytime programs for preschool children are offered in nearly all public libraries in the United States, little is known about the books librarians use in these programs. This study employed text analysis to explore topics and genres of books recommended for public library storytime programs.

Methods – In the study, the researchers randomly selected 429 children books recommended for preschool storytime programs. Two corpuses of text were extracted from the titles, abstracts, and subject terms from bibliographic data. Multiple text mining methods were employed to investigate the content of the selected books, including term frequency, bi-gram analysis, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis.

Results – The findings revealed popular topics in storytime books, including animals/creatures, color, alphabet, nature, movements, families, friends, and others. The analysis of bibliographic data described various genres and formats of storytime books, such as juvenile fiction, rhymes, board books, pictorial work, poetry, folklore, and nonfiction. Sentiment analysis results reveal that storytime books included a variety of words representing various dimensions of sentiment.

Conclusion – The findings suggested that books recommended for storytime programs are centered around topics of interest to children that also support school readiness. In addition to selecting fictionalized stories that will support children in developing the academic concepts and socio-emotional skills necessary for later success, librarians should also be mindful of integrating informational texts into storytime programs.

Introduction

Storytime programs for preschool children are a common provision of public libraries worldwide. With a long history (Albright et al., 2009) and the highest rates of attendance among public library program offerings (Miller et al., 2013), storytimes serve as the backbone of public library programming. Preschool storytimes are typically designed to be highly interactive, learning-focused, thirty-minute enjoyable endeavors that incorporate shared book readings, props, songs, and activities intended to engage both children and their adult caregivers (Diamant-Cohen & Hetrick, 2014; Goulding et al., 2017; Mills et al., 2018).

Book selection is one task among many that storytime providers undertake when planning a public library storytime program. Other planning tasks may include deciding on a theme, incorporating educational tips for caregivers, gathering supplies for an activity or craft, creating handouts for caregivers, integrating technology resources, and choosing songs, interactive rhymes, fingerplays, movement activities, or flannel board activities (Diamont-Cohen & Hetrick, 2014; Ghoting & Martin-Diaz, 2006). To aid in planning these tasks, storytime providers may rely on professional resources for storytime development such as conferences, books published by the American Library Association and other library publishers, trainings offered through state library agencies and consortia, and webinars or courses from commercial websites such as Webjunction or Library Juice Academy. However, these formal resources may not be accessible to all storytime providers due to financial costs or time constraints. Therefore, storytime providers at a public library with a limited budget may prefer to plan with the aid of a free informal, online resource, such as a librarian’s blog about storytime programs or a library’s website with recommended reading lists.

In this study, we explored the subject matter of books recommended by online resources for public library preschool storytime programs. We extracted bibliographic records of books recommended for storytimes and analyzed them to explore topics, genres, and sentiment of those books. We applied text mining methods for data analysis, such as term frequency and network analysis, LDA topic modeling, and sentiment analysis.

Literature Review

Theoretical Framework

Picture books serve as unique multimodal sources of information in which verbal and visual elements combine and interact to convey meaning (Martens et al., 2012). The tension between visual and verbal modes—the tendency to slowly gaze upon images and layout versus the forward momentum of reading text—make the picture book reading experience distinct and synergistic (Sipe, 1998). Serafini (2012) has posited four roles essential for picture book reading: 1) the navigator role entails proficiently employing conventions of print and cognitive strategies and skills to move through the written text while simultaneously making sense of the visual design and images; 2) the interpreter role consists of meaning making; 3) in acting as a designer, the reader determines the path through which a text is experienced by determining the order of attention to and importance of textual and visual elements; and 4) in enacting the interrogator role, the reader serves as a critical analyst acknowledging that messages and interpretations are socially constructed and politically, socially, and culturally powerful. Using Eisenberg and Small’s (1993) framework for information-based education, Campana (2018) demonstrated that information resources, information process, and individuals interact within the storytime context to provide learning opportunities for all involved. As a primary information resource within storytime programs, picture books are an important element of the storytime learning environment, and the storytime librarians’ processes facilitate children’s picture book reading and meaning making.

General Content of Children’s Books

Nearly half of all picture books published in English in the United States feature animals as leading characters (Horning, 2016). Preschool-aged children have shown an aesthetic preference for artwork, such as picture book covers, that feature animals (Danko-McGhee & Slutsky, 2011). Markowsky (1975) pointed to four reasons why children’s book authors and illustrators might choose animal characters: a) void of the accoutrements associated with specific groups of people, animal characters are relatable to children of all stripes and circumstances; b) animal characters produce an element of whimsy, enabling escape, inspiration, and imagination; c) animal characters serve as a form of shorthand or symbolic representation; and d) animal characters with exaggerated features and characteristics lend an element of humor.

Book Choice in Preschool Education

Several studies have examined characteristics of books read aloud in preschool classrooms and centers. Mesmer (2018) interviewed the staff of 31 preschool centers in the southwestern United States who expressed that the characteristics they considered most frequently were illustrations, rhyme, length, simple content, and a topic relevant to children. When examining the genres of such books, researchers have noted a lack of informational books (Pentimonti et al., 2011; Thoren, 2016). This is concerning because sharing informational books provides many educational benefits to children, such as content knowledge and preparation for successfully reading this genre in school (Lennox, 2013; Neuman et al., 2016), and because children are highly interested in informational books (Baldwin & Morrow, 2019; Price et al., 2012). In addition, studies of preschool classrooms revealed a lack of concept books, or books that focused on foundational academic topics such as counting and the alphabet (Gou et al., 2013; Pentimonti et al., 2011).

Book Choice in Public Library Storytimes

Diamant-Cohen and Hetrick (2014) contended that “the main goal of preschool storytime is to help children develop a positive connection with books and illustrations, which will later translate into a positive attitude toward books in general” (p. 4). To accomplish this goal, librarians typically incorporate three to four books in each storytime program (Diamant-Cohen & Hetrick, 2014; Goulding et al., 2017; Kociubuk & Campana, 2019). Naturally, the topics and sentiment of books shared in public library storytime programs will affect the extent to which children develop a positive connection; thus, librarians’ book choices are important.

Despite the importance of book choice, only a few studies have examined the characteristics of books chosen for storytime programs. One study examined the books shared in 69 baby, toddler, preschool, and family storytimes in public libraries in the state of Washington during 2013 (Kociubuk & Campana, 2019). The book characteristics collected were genre (fiction or nonfiction) and publication date; thus, this study does not provide insight into the topic or sentiment of storytime books. In contrast, two surveys of professionals who choose storytime books revealed that they did take into account the topic and other aspects of a book’s content (Carroll, 2015; Fullerton et al., 2018). Carroll (2015) identified seven influential factors in book selection: length and complexity; illustrations; subjects, concepts, and themes; use of language such as rhyme and repetition; how easily the book could be used to invite audience participation; elements such as suspense or humor that could emotionally engage the children; and personal preference. Similarly, respondents to Fullerton et al.’s (2018) survey chose language use and illustrator’s craft as top considerations when selecting books.

Objectives of Public Library Storytimes

One of the important program objectives of storytimes lies in learning and education (Campana, 2018; Fehrenbach et al., 1998; Peterson, 2012). Storytime providers have long emphasized early literacy development of young children when designing programs (Albright et al, 2009), but scholars have recently noted the broader role libraries play in supporting school readiness (Campana, 2018). Storytime serves as a valuable opportunity for children to build knowledge structures of colors, numbers, singing, alphabet, and more (Cahill et al., 2018). According to Celano and Neuman (2001), “by reading books, telling stories, and reciting rhymes, librarians offer children a ‘leg up’ in developing emergent reading skills” (p. 39).

While parents and caregivers certainly value storytimes for the learning opportunities they afford, many view these programs as family entertainment venues (Khoir et al., 2017) and worthy experiences simply because of the joy they bring to children (Cahill et al., 2020). Most storytime programs offer opportunities for children and adults to interact, play, and sing (Celano & Neuman, 2001). Stories told in rhymes and picture book versions of songs, in addition to encouraging playful interaction, may aid children in developing early literacy skills such as phonological awareness (Giles & Fresne, 2015).

Additionally, storytimes serve as opportunities to stimulate and extend children’s feelings and emotional experiences because reading children’s literature can be a source of emotional learning for children (Short, 2018; Thoren, 2016) and shared book reading has been found to be a viable activity to help children build socio-emotional competence (Schapira & Aram, 2019). Further, a majority of literacy educators, including librarians, regard social emotional learning as a responsibility of literacy educators but one for which they need further support (International Literacy Association, 2020).

The Aim and Research Questions of the Study

Storytime programs for young children are offered in nearly all public libraries. However, few researchers have investigated the topics and content of the books that librarians use in such programs. It is important to have a better understanding of the content of the books to produce best practices and suggestions for book selection in storytimes for young children. Our overarching aim through this study was to explore topics and genres of the books that are read in storytimes for young children in public libraries. In addition, we aimed to examine the nature of sentiment represented in books widely used in storytimes for young children. The methodological contribution of this study is that it employed computational text analysis methods to investigate the content of a large sample size of books recommended for library storytime programs. The following two research questions guide the investigation of this study:

RQ 1. What are the topics and genres of books recommended for public library storytime programs designed for preschool children?

RQ 2. What is the nature of sentiment represented in books recommended for public library storytime programs designed for preschool children?

Table 1
Online Resources for Storytime Chosen for This Study

Resource	Number of Total Themes	Number of Themes in Stratified Random Sample
Esther Storytimes	74	15
Jbrary	19	4
MCLS kids	158	32
Silly Librarian Preschool	100	20
Storytime Katie	195	39
Storytime Secrets	70	14
Total	616	124

Methods

To identify informal sources that storytime providers were likely to encounter and use, we conducted a simple Internet search for “storytime resources for librarians.” We then selected the first six sources that recommended books for storytime use based on theme: Esther Storytimes, Jbrary, MCLS Kids, Silly Librarian, Storytime Katie, and Storytime Secrets. We next created a list of all preschool storytime themes shared on each site, which totaled 616 in all (Table 1). Because each theme contained multiple book recommendations, including the entire population would be laborious and unfeasible from a data preparation standpoint; thus, we randomly selected 20% of the themes, resulting in 124 themes in the sample. For each theme, we recorded the name and author of each book recommended as supporting the theme and appropriate for storytime.

In this study, we analyzed largely two types of textual information collected about each book from the WorldCat database: “titles and abstracts” and “subject terms.” We excluded any books that did not have an abstract available from WorldCat. After removing them from the book list, 429 books were used for analysis. Two sets of text corpus data were made for text mining: (1) titles and abstracts and (2) subject terms.

Multiple text mining techniques were employed to explore the content of storytime books. First, a term frequency analysis was conducted to identify the most frequent terms that occurred in each corpus. The collected text underwent a pre-processing process, including tokenization, stopword elimination, and stemming. In addition, bi-grams were further investigated to identify key concepts or popular genres in storytime books. Second, we analyzed the relationships among the terms based on term co-occurrence analysis. A term co-occurrence map was created to identify key topics and genres in storytime books. Third, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling was applied to uncover prevailing topics underlying the books commonly recommended for storytimes. LDA topic modeling is an unsupervised machine learning method to discover hidden themes or topics from unstructured text (Blei, 2012). We extracted 20 topics from the corpus of titles and abstracts. Fourth, we explored the nature of emotion reflected in storytime books by analyzing sentiment terms. The sentiment lexicon constructed by Liu (2015) was adopted to investigate emotional aspects of the text from storytime books. The bing lexicon classifies selected words into the binary categories, i.e., positive and negative sentiment categories (https://www.cs.uic.edu/~liub/FBS/sentiment-analysis.html).

Textual analysis was conducted using various R software packages. R is a software tool that can be used for statistical analysis and data science, and it includes a multitude of packages for natural language processing and text mining. For term frequency analysis, two packages were mainly used: R tm and R tidy. For the LDA topic model, the R topic models package was employed.

Results

RQ 1. What are the topics and genres of books recommended for public library storytime programs designed for preschool children?

First, we calculated the most frequent terms from the corpus of titles and abstracts. It exhibited 2,289 unique terms and 7,718 tokens after removing stopwords. In textual analysis, a unique word (also called type) refers to a distinct term in a corpus while a token indicates an occurrence of a unique type (Jackson & Moulinier, 2007). We investigated the top 96 stemmed terms that appeared more than 15 times (Appendix A). The two most frequent terms are “book” (1st, 1.35%) and “anim” (2nd, 1.17%). Abstracts usually summarize the books, so it is not a surprise that the term “book” occurred most frequently from the corpus. Interestingly, “anim,” which indicated the term of “animal(s),” was observed second most frequently. In addition, there were other animal-related terms observed among top ranked terms; for instance, “bear” (3rd), “cat” (15th), and “dog” (21st), among several others. The results also included several terms associated with early learning, such as “color” (8th), “rhyme” (12th), “alphabet” (26th), “read” (43rd), and “count” (82nd). Another distinct group of frequent terms can be classified as book audiences or characters, such as “young” (7th), “babi” (9th), “children” (10th), “boy” (12th), and “reader” (23rd). In addition, several terms were related to actions or movements, such as “play” (3rd), “find” (3rd), and “danc” (37th). We also observed terms depicting emotion, such as “love” (3rd), “fun” (43rd), and “enjoy” (82nd).

We next turned attention to the “subject terms” corpus and tallied frequencies of the terms observed in it. The corpus consisted of 538 unique terms and 3,642 tokens. Subject terms were much shorter than the combinations of titles and summaries. Also, this corpus mostly consisted of nouns with only few adjectives or verbs observed. The top 82 most frequent terms that appeared more than five times are listed in Appendix B. The analysis showed that subject terms are likely to provide genre information or more condensed topic terms. The two top-ranked terms indicated genres of books: “fiction” (1st, 25.95%) and “juvenil” (2nd, 13.40%). WorldCat organizes books by genre using subject headings. For example, A Fairy-Tale Fall by Apple Jordan has three subject terms: “Autumn -- Juvenile fiction,” “Princesses -- Juvenile fiction,” and “Halloween -- Juvenile fiction,” and represents a typical format of WorldCat subject terms, which is a combination of a topical term and a genre. Thus, genre related terms were a frequent observation from the corpus. Other genre classification terms that ranked highly included “stori” (3rd), “rhyme” (6th), “literatur” (7th), “pictori” (10th), “picture” (15th), “movabl” (17th), and several others. This finding implied that most storytime books could be categorized as juvenile fiction, stories in rhyme, pictorial works, picture books, or movable books. We can also infer that storytime books involved other genres, such as “folklore” (24th), “poetri” (26th), and “nonfict” (55th).

In addition, subject terms depicted prevalent topics in storytime books. Interestingly, similar to the results from the titles and abstracts, the term “anim” is ranked highly at 5th, revealing the popularity of animal related topics in storytimes. Animal related terms included “dog” (19th), “bear” (20th), “cat” (24th), “rabbit” (46th), and several others. Several of the terms implied topics related to knowledge and skills important for young children; for example “count” (20th), “song” (28th), “alphabet” (34th), “sound” (46th), “scienc” (46th), “read” (68th), and “languag” (83rd). Storytime books also reflected social and behavioural topics, such as “friendship” (46th), “behavior” (61st), and “social” (68th). Other notable topics or concepts that children can learn included: family (e.g., “famili” (32nd), “mother” (34th), “parent” (46th), “son” (61st), and “father” (55st)), nature (e.g., “natur” (32nd), “snow” (46th), “moon” (61st), and “tree” (83rd)), settings (e.g., “farm” (39th), “garden” (46th), and “zoo” (83rd)), Halloween (e.g., “Halloween” (34th) and “pumpkin” (68th)), and other objects/characters (e.g., “monster” (55rd), “pirat” (61st), and “dinosaur” (68th)).

We further analyzed bi-gram terms, which indicated two adjacent tokens, from the titles and abstracts corpus. In total, 9,018 unique bi-grams were observed after removing stopwords. Appendix C lists the top 44 bi-gram terms that were counted four times or more. The top two bi-grams are “picture book” and “rhyming text.” Also, among the ranked bi-grams, there were bi-grams that indicated the types of books, including “board book,” “simple text,” and “illustrations rhyming.” This finding highlighted that the nature of storytime books related to pictures, rhymes, and simple text to be shared with young children. The bi-gram analysis result also showed popular topics and characters in storytime books. As shown in Figure 1, a term co-occurrence network revealed relationships among key terms in storytime books. The term “book” showed close associations with “picture,” “children,” and “animal,” which reveals popular types of books in storytimes. Another notable linking group is made of “text,” “illustrations,” and “rhyming.”

The same bi-gram analysis was conducted for the subject terms (Appendix D). In total, 3,250 bi-grams (1,312 unique bi-gram types) were observed. The most frequent bi-grams indicated the genres or types of storytime books; for example “juvenile fiction,” “juvenile literature,” “fiction stories,” “board books,” “pictorial works,” and so on. The visualization of term co-occurrence analysis highlighted the genres of storytime books as it placed “juvenile” and “fiction” among other genre terms in the center of the network diagram (Figure 2).

To explore popular topics in storytime books, we derived 20 topics from the titles and abstracts corpus using the LDA topic model (Table 2). Not all topics exhibit distinct and coherent thematic terms, but we found that these topics can be classified largely into several categories. There are several learning components observed from the extracted topics: for example, T7 (e.g., alphabet, letter) and T4 (e.g., color, crayon, count). Animals and creatures were another prominent topic in storytimes, such as T6 (e.g., cat, dog), T2 (e.g., mouse, spider, pigeon), and T11 (e.g., bear, elephant). The LDA topic model also detected topic terms relevant to book types, such as T9 (e.g., book, illustration), T14 (e.g., rhyme, illustration, and interactive) and T20 (e.g., illustration, rhyme). The components of activities, actions, and movements were also reflected in storytime books: for example, T5 (e.g., dance, swim, discover) and T4 (e.g., play). Moreover, topic terms obtained from the LDA algorithm represented other aspects of topics covered in storytime books, ranging from audiences (e.g., children, young reader), friends and families (e.g., friend, family, mother), nature (e.g., tree, sky, flower), settings (e.g., farm, garden), and emotions (e.g., fun, love, happy).

Figure 1

A network of term co-occurrence relationships: titles and abstracts.

Figure 2

A network of term co-occurrence relationships: subject terms.

Table 2

LDA Topic Model (20 Topics)

T1	T2	T3	T4	T5	T6	T7	T8	T9	T10
night fun stop home busi visit pig differ follow pictur	mous spider includ pigeon back web mommi cooki long varieti	hat magic text rabbit classic pop best name treasur chicken	play color crayon children creat heart zoo bestsel count time	danc pumpkin halloween swim discov five favorit board pirat grade	cat love dog shoe imagin pete around white kitti sing	alphabet letter featur differ time pictur world full pea everi	grow follow mani plant turn tree eat forest celebr librari	book illustr life old artist time cut journey color easi	egg girl back salli bug butterfli ice big chick bring
T11	T12	T13	T14	T15	T16	T17	T18	T19	T20
bear big boy brown bus eleph tree celebr around cake	find boy tri song pictur school describ best everyth join	farm bunni mother text dinosaur tale bed amaz world readi	young reader rhyme garden illustr moon children interact reveal edit	stori give introduc train blanket surpris children includ sit answer	perfect famili crocodil keep three full live water know show	anim tail page cloth enjoy everyon wear parent louis aloud	book babi love penguin toe red along delight flap page	friend read simpl snow tri sheep monster kiss text hous	appl ten illustr tree rhyme leav gingerbread pie simpl trick

RQ 2. What is the nature of sentiment represented in books recommended for public library storytime programs designed for preschool children?

Sentiment analysis was conducted to explore the emotional aspects of storytime language. We identified the top 25 positive and negative terms respectively (Figure 3). Overall, there were more positive terms than negative terms observed from the titles and abstracts corpus. Frequently observed positive terms include “like,” “love,” “perfect,” “fun,” “classic,” “favorite,” and others. These positive terms described storytime books as likable, easy, fun, enjoyable, playful, happy, and other upbeat descriptions. On the contrary, there were fewer negative terms observed. The top ranked negative term turned out to be “fall.” According to our further observation, however, there were more cases when the term “fall” was used to indicate the season, rather than an act of falling or moving down: for example, “a little girl spends a glorious fall day picking apples and searching for the perfect pumpkin in this edition of a timeless favorite” in the book Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell. Other negative terms did not necessarily have any negative nuance in the context of children's stories. For instance, pigs and bugs are likely to be featured as friendly characters rather than unpleasant objects in storytime books. Despite the nuance based on context, other terms appeared with obvious negative connotations, such as “die,” “tired,” “trouble,” “lonely,” “skeptical,” “fear,” and others.

Figure 3

Positive and negative terms in storytime books.

Discussion

By analyzing the most frequent terms, we explored different aspects of storytime books, such as popular topics, audiences, and styles or techniques for sharing the books. Not surprisingly, animals were a major topic in these recommended books just as they are in picture books in general (Horning, 2016). In our results, various types of animals were ranked highly, such as bear, cat, dog, mouse, and rabbit. Because preschool-age children have shown a preference for artwork that features animals (Danko-McGhee & Slutsky, 2011), our results indicated that sharing these recommended books would appeal to children’s interests.

The frequent terms also pointed to opportunities to integrate school readiness and other elements of early learning into storytime programs. Several different concepts related to children’s learning were observed, such as color, rhymes, alphabet, read, song, and count. The use of concept books may be especially important in public library storytimes to give children additional support in these content areas because studies have found that preschool classrooms and centers may offer only small numbers of concept books (Guo et al., 2013; Pentimonti et al., 2011). Additionally, the findings coincided with the storytime providers’ preference for concept books that may engage and empower children with familiar, repetitive content (Carroll, 2015). The frequency of terms related to early learning concepts indicated that providers can use these recommended books to achieve the school readiness related objectives of storytimes.

The term frequency analysis also pointed to opportunities for librarians to structure storytimes as emotionally positive and fun. Frequent terms included “play,” “love,” “fun,” “enjoy,” and “dance.” Based on attendees’ expectations that storytimes are a place for entertainment (Khoir et al., 2017) and joyful experiences (Cahill et al., 2020), sharing these recommended books can be part of meeting attendees’ expectations and accomplishing storytime objectives.

The analysis of subject terms illuminated popular genres of storytime books as they tended to include controlled heading terms of book genres/categories. The top 10 terms identified the most common genres of books shared in storytimes: fiction, juvenile, story books, rhymes, children's literature, board books, and pictorial works. We found that storytime books also included poetry, folklore, and nonfiction, although to a much smaller extent. These findings were similar to those of Kociubuk and Campana (2019), who found that less than 10% of stories shared in storytimes were in the narrative informational or non-narrative informational genres.

The term-level analysis revealed both visual and sound modes of story delivery in storytimes. Terms related to visual mode, such as pictures and illustrations, were highly ranked in both the corpuses. Also, storytime books actively involved sound modes, in particular, rhymes and songs. That is, storytime books are not simply text of stories, they promote interactivity through multiple modes by utilizing both visual and sound sensory channels to deliver stories to children. The importance of visual elements as a rationale for choosing books for read-alouds is reflected in research with children, storytime providers, children’s literature experts, and early childhood education teachers (Carroll, 2015; Danko-McGhee & Slutsky, 2011; Fullerton et al., 2018; Mesmer, 2018).

Movements and actions are another mode to facilitate interactions and are often integrated into storytimes; however, not many action/movement terms were observed among the top terms. This may be because storytime providers plan to get the audience moving before or after reading books aloud through activities such as songs, rhymes, or fingerplays (Giles & Fresne, 2015; Kociubuk & Campana, 2019).

We also explored emotional aspects of storytime books based on sentiment analysis. Overall, the sentiment nature of the storytime context is very positive, showing more positive vocabulary proportionately in this study. That is, the fundamental atmosphere of storytimes would be very positive and enjoyable. In addition, we observed that storytime books included various words representing emotion. They can be sources for children to learn and understand a diverse spectrum of emotion and sentiment, thus giving providers the opportunity to contribute to children’s social-emotional learning, another objective of storytime programs.

This study was not without limitations. First, the analysis was done with the bibliographic records from the WorldCat database. The dataset consisted of titles, abstracts, and subject terms of the selected books, but it did not include full-text. Second, the sample of 429 books might not represent the entire book selection in storytime practices. The books included are recommended widely across the storytime community, but there is no information on which books are actually adopted and read in the field. Third, several of the terms were not interpreted correctly in the sentiment analysis as the computational tool did not catch the meaning or nuance currently in the context. For example, the word “fall” was categorized into the negative terms even though it indicated the season. These limitations indicated a need for further research, which can investigate full-text content of an enlarged sample of storytime books. Future research can also develop a sophisticated method to better analyze topical terms and sentiment based on text mining. Additionally, the complexity of language can be investigated to assess the levels of vocabulary exposed to children via storytimes.

Conclusion

In this study, we employed a text mining approach to explore topics of storytime books. We identified 429 books recommended for use in public library storytime sessions designed for preschool age children, and we collected two corpuses of text from the WorldCat database based on these books: a) titles and abstracts, and b) subject terms. To investigate the nature of theme and sentiment in storytime books, we applied multiple text mining techniques for the collected text, such as term frequency analysis, bi-grams analysis, term co-occurrences network analysis, LDA topic modeling, and sentiment analysis. The findings revealed popular topics and genres as well as emotional terms that would likely be addressed in storytimes drawing from these sources.

So what? Why does it matter what books librarians may choose to share with children and caregivers during storytime? According to Sipe (2008), “literature … allows us to perceive our lives, the lives of others, and our society in new ways, expanding our view of what is possible, serving as a catalyst to ignite our capacity to imagine a more just and equitable world. To understand stories and how they work is thus to possess a cognitive tool that not only allows children to become comprehensively literate, but also to achieve their full human potential” (p. 247). Our findings suggested that the books recommended for storytime programs hold the promise of preparing children for school and for life.

Author Contributions

Soohyung Joo: Conceptualization, Data collection, Data analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – revision and editing Erin Ingram: Conceptualization, Data collection, Literature review, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – revision and editing Maria Cahill: Conceptualization, Data collection, Literature review, Investigation, Discussion, Writing – original draft, Writing – revision and editing.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Federal Award Identification Number: LG-96-17-0199-17). We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

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Appendix A

Most Frequent Terms from the Titles and Abstracts Corpus 

Rank	Term	Freq.	Percent	Rank	Term	Freq.	Percent
1	book	104	1.35%	43	full	19	0.25%
2	anim	90	1.17%	50	back	18	0.23%
3	love	48	0.62%	50	bed	18	0.23%
3	bear	48	0.62%	50	everyon	18	0.23%
3	find	48	0.62%	50	magic	18	0.23%
3	play	48	0.62%	50	garden	18	0.23%
7	young	45	0.58%	50	old	18	0.23%
8	color	42	0.54%	56	follow	17	0.22%
9	babi	39	0.51%	56	celebr	17	0.22%
10	children	38	0.49%	56	toe	17	0.22%
11	illustr	37	0.48%	56	just	17	0.22%
12	boy	36	0.47%	56	farm	17	0.22%
12	rhyme	36	0.47%	56	egg	17	0.22%
14	text	35	0.45%	56	board	17	0.22%
15	tri	33	0.43%	56	monster	17	0.22%
15	cat	33	0.43%	56	home	17	0.22%
17	stori	32	0.41%	65	surpris	16	0.21%
18	tree	31	0.40%	65	girl	16	0.21%
19	friend	30	0.39%	65	busi	16	0.21%
19	pictur	30	0.39%	65	learn	16	0.21%
21	dog	29	0.38%	65	shoe	16	0.21%
21	time	29	0.38%	65	featur	16	0.21%
23	reader	28	0.36%	71	child	15	0.19%
23	mani	28	0.36%	71	crayon	15	0.19%
23	big	28	0.36%	71	goe	15	0.19%
26	alphabet	25	0.32%	71	keep	15	0.19%
26	page	25	0.32%	71	kiss	15	0.19%
28	simpl	24	0.31%	71	beauti	15	0.19%
28	night	24	0.31%	71	pumpkin	15	0.19%
28	world	24	0.31%	71	stop	15	0.19%
28	hat	24	0.31%	71	give	15	0.19%
32	grow	23	0.30%	71	school	15	0.19%
32	mother	23	0.30%	71	snow	15	0.19%
32	includ	23	0.30%	82	crocodil	14	0.18%
35	ten	22	0.29%	82	count	14	0.18%
35	appl	22	0.29%	82	best	14	0.18%
37	perfect	21	0.27%	82	around	14	0.18%
37	danc	21	0.27%	82	creat	14	0.18%
37	red	21	0.27%	82	enjoy	14	0.18%
40	penguin	20	0.26%	82	share	14	0.18%
40	know	20	0.26%	82	everyth	14	0.18%
40	famili	20	0.26%	82	introduc	14	0.18%
43	fun	19	0.25%	82	spider	14	0.18%
43	water	19	0.25%	82	imagin	14	0.18%
43	read	19	0.25%	82	heart	14	0.18%
43	discov	19	0.25%	82	bath	14	0.18%
43	differ	19	0.25%	82	song	14	0.18%
43	mous	19	0.25%	82	duck	14	0.18%

Appendix B

Most Frequent Terms from the Subject Terms

Rank	Term	Freq.	Percent	Rank	Term	Freq.	Percent
1	fiction	945	25.95%	39	appl	10	0.27%
2	juvenil	488	13.40%	39	domest	10	0.27%
3	stori	126	3.46%	39	farm	10	0.27%
4	book	110	3.02%	39	play	10	0.27%
5	anim	99	2.72%	46	scienc	9	0.25%
6	rhyme	81	2.22%	46	rabbit	9	0.25%
7	literatur	60	1.65%	46	american	9	0.25%
8	children	55	1.51%	46	parent	9	0.25%
9	board	50	1.37%	46	garden	9	0.25%
10	pictori	42	1.15%	46	sound	9	0.25%
11	work	41	1.13%	46	friendship	9	0.25%
12	humor	27	0.74%	46	text	9	0.25%
13	toy	23	0.63%	46	snow	9	0.25%
13	specimen	23	0.63%	55	penguin	8	0.22%
15	pictur	22	0.60%	55	fictiti	8	0.22%
16	color	21	0.58%	55	monster	8	0.22%
17	english	19	0.52%	55	nonfict	8	0.22%
17	movabl	19	0.52%	55	duck	8	0.22%
19	dog	18	0.49%	55	father	8	0.22%
20	count	17	0.47%	61	hat	7	0.19%
20	bear	17	0.47%	61	moon	7	0.19%
22	subject	16	0.44%	61	individu	7	0.19%
22	child	16	0.44%	61	behavior	7	0.19%
24	folklor	15	0.41%	61	pirat	7	0.19%
24	cat	15	0.41%	61	son	7	0.19%
26	bedtim	14	0.38%	61	magic	7	0.19%
26	poetri	14	0.38%	68	train	6	0.16%
28	life	13	0.36%	68	read	6	0.16%
28	imagin	13	0.36%	68	autumn	6	0.16%
28	school	13	0.36%	68	pumpkin	6	0.16%
28	song	13	0.36%	68	bath	6	0.16%
32	famili	12	0.33%	68	butterfli	6	0.16%
32	natur	12	0.33%	68	dinosaur	6	0.16%
34	halloween	11	0.30%	68	social	6	0.16%
34	chicken	11	0.30%	68	cloth	6	0.16%
34	alphabet	11	0.30%	68	danc	6	0.16%
34	mother	11	0.30%	68	dress	6	0.16%
34	infanc	11	0.30%	68	easter	6	0.16%
39	charact	10	0.27%	68	state	6	0.16%
39	babi	10	0.27%	68	unit	6	0.16%
39	mice	10	0.27%	68	emot	6	0.16%

Appendix C

Top Bi-grams: Titles and Abstracts

Rank	Bi-gram	Freq.	Rank	Bi-gram	Freq.
1	picture book	24	18	illustrations rhyming	5
2	rhyming text	17	18	letter alphabet	5
3	young boy	14	18	grades k-3	5
4	board book	11	18	york times	5
5	full color	10	18	one day	5
5	pete cat	10	18	new york	5
7	simple text	9	18	one one	5
8	young readers	8	30	past four	4
9	many things	7	30	times bestseller	4
9	little girl	7	30	stop kissing	4
11	young children	6	30	brown bear	4
11	ten little	6	30	letters alphabet	4
11	definitely wear	6	30	heart like	4
11	babba zarrah	6	30	like zoo	4
11	ice cream	6	30	spin web	4
11	minerva louise	6	30	text reveal	4
11	wear clothing	6	30	new way	4
18	apple pie	5	30	animals definitely	4
18	magic hat	5	30	book celebrates	4
18	white shoes	5	30	minutes past	4
18	board pages	5	30	old lady	4
18	gingerbread man	5	30	old macdonald	4

Appendix D

Top Bi-grams: Subject Terms

Rank	Bi-gram	Freq.	Rank	Bi-gram	Freq.
1	juvenile fiction	412	33	fictitious character	8
2	stories rhyme	76	33	fiction dogs	8
3	juvenile literature	59	33	juvenile nonfiction	8
4	fiction stories	51	33	fiction domestic	8
5	board books	50	38	mother child	7
6	fiction animals	42	38	apples juvenile	7
7	pictorial works	41	38	fiction color	7
8	animals fiction	38	38	fiction family	7
9	works juvenile	34	38	fiction imagination	7
10	animals juvenile	27	38	fiction bears	7
11	humorous stories	26	38	child juvenile	7
12	books specimens	21	38	dogs juvenile	7
13	picture books	20	38	fiction mother	7
14	children's stories	19	38	rabbits fiction	7
14	toy movable	19	38	mice fiction	7
14	fiction humorous	19	38	sons fiction	7
14	movable books	19	38	life fiction	7
14	fiction board	19	38	imagination fiction	7
14	fiction juvenile	19	38	color fiction	7
20	books children	14	53	clothing dress	6
21	fiction children's	13	53	united states	6
22	bedtime fiction	12	53	parent child	6
23	animals infancy	11	53	baby books	6
23	fiction picture	11	53	infancy juvenile	6
23	bears fiction	11	53	cats juvenile	6
26	domestic animals	10	53	fiction schools	6
27	counting juvenile	9	53	fiction alphabet	6
27	fiction counting	9	53	fiction friendship	6
27	chickens fiction	9	53	fiction halloween	6
27	child fiction	9	53	fiction social	6
27	dogs fiction	9	53	pirates fiction	6
27	rhyme juvenile	9	53	play fiction	6
33	children's songs	8	53	books juvenile	6