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Book Review Sites
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There are so many great resources for parents to check when it comes to movies. However, I have never found a whole lot in the way of review sites for books. Does anyone know of anything out there that would help a parent decide appropriateness/literary worthiness of a particular book? For example, say one of my children wants to read The Golden Willow Tree (just making that title up) and, of course, I don’t have time to pre-read it, is there a website that will let me know what to expect in terms of themes/language/adult content, etc?
This question is only partly for myself. I am speaking at a homeschool conference at the end of March on choosing literature for your family and I’d love to be able to direct the moms to some good online resources. Thanks!!
While I don’t know the answer to the question, I REALLY hope someone does! What a blessing it would be to have an online equivelent to pluggedinonline.com!
We’re trying to build one here with the CM Bookfinder. Each book’s entry has places for reviews. I would love to see that tool become even more helpful.
I love Goodreads. I have found a few people from this forum too – you can mark them as “friends” and then you get summaries of their reviews. I have tried to enter reviews into the Bookfinder and find it time-consuming (a lot of the books I want to review aren’t in the Bookfinder and to add them in takes a long time and asks for info I don’t have) so I just use Goodreads.
I also check Amazon. Sometimes there are reviews, sometimes not.
Heather
I use lots of places. Amazon is often very good. You can often get enough of an idea just by judging the responses that you have some idea of whether you want to mess with the book or not. Barnes and Noble can be the same way, too. I also am on Goodreads–I think it’s especially good for newer books. For older books I like to check http://www.ValeriesLivingBooks.com or Jan Bloom’s books What Shall We Then Read? Also I like good reviews by homeschool businesses I trust–Lifetime Books and Gifts, The Book Peddler. If all else fails, ask around! Homeschoolers are pretty willing to discuss books, I’ve found. 🙂 Just drop in on nearly any list or forum, ask “Hey, what do you think about Book X?” and you are likely to get so many opinions you hardly know what to do with them all. LOL
If anyone else is on Goodreads, drop by and say hi, lol. I tend to use it more for my personal reading than the books my kids all read. I tried to get them all on the site but they didn’t stick with it.
My biggest dilemna is not being able to pre-read alot of the books I am handing my children. It would be so nice to have a heads-up about language or themes that would require discussion. I do like to ask about books here and that is helpful.
I’ve also found this limited website helpful too: http://www.factsonfiction.org/content/detailedreport.aspx
Thanks for all the ideas, ladies. Sonya, I will be thrilled when the SCM bookfinder reviews are well-used. I didn’t realize you had them, either!
The kids over at http://incredibooks.com don’t rate books specifically on content criteria but they are careful to mark books as suitable for older or younger readers, etc.
Anabetica,
I am just working on my talk for the conference now and checked out the site you suggested. It is EXCELLENT. There is a decent list of books included and I hope it will continue to develop and expand. The reviews are exactly the kind of detail I was hoping to find. Thanks so much.
Christine
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