The authors discuss strategic selection of literature for children and young adults based on the characteristics of written text and images as teachers and parents choose books for classroom and home settings. The topic is approached from two stances/lenses: (1) the cognitive processes used while reading and the ways different genres, topics, and media influence those processes, and (2) understanding the ways literature is conceptualized across multiple domains and how these differences inform strategies educators and parents can use to select complex children's and adolescent literature to support student achievement and the development of independent engaged readers.