I cannot keep up with Earthgirl's reading - she reads books and books! As she begins to get up to the tween-type books, I want to be careful about what she puts into that little mind, but I have not committed to read every book before she does - she reads hours each day! So I, at least partially, rely on reviews by others.
I love book reviews. I can jump around and read review after review. I even enjoy reading reviews of books I know I won't read. So it is just natural for me to seek out reviews of her books, too.
Focus on the Family has a Book Review site for parents. It does not purport to judge the literary content of the books, but gives a synopsis, along with what to expect from a Christian worldview-parenting perspective. So, for example, it tells me about whether a book has profanity, any ..ahem.. inappropriate content, and whether it has any religious content at all. It's also helpful to read reader reviews at Amazon.com. (I'm not looking up the link for that one)
I don't think I want to be a movie reviewer. Though you get to see good movies, you see a lot more bad movies, and are subjected to much yuckiness.
We have used Screen-it for movie reviews several years. It's worth the spoilers to know just what you are getting in to. For example, a while back there was a movie we grownups wanted to see (right now I cannot recall what movie it was). It looked good; the trailer hooked us, but the rating was a concern. When we checked it out on Screen-it, we learned the movie contained, among many other offenses, OVER 200 separate utterances of a particular 4-letter word, one still (thankfully) not allowed on network TV. I did a little math, and found that this word would be inflicted upon us, on average, EVERY 20 SECONDS during the movie. We decided the story could not be good enough for us to endure that kind of verbal assault for 90 minutes. Thank you, Screen-it!
Focus on the Family's Plugged-In videos review site helps me know if this video will be appropriate for by child. This is especially helpful if a child is easily traumatized my fearful scenes.
I wonder what review sources you use?
3 comments:
I WILL PASS THIS INFO ALONG TO MY SISTER AND HER DAUGHTER AND GRANDDAUGHTERS. THANKS SO MUCH. WISHING YOU A NICE WEEK!
Thanks for the comment on my blog. =) My daughter has a book review blog of her own (she reads more than she posts) but you might find it interesting.
http://bananasbookblog.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the links! When my daughter was younger and first starting to read young adult books, I used to read reviews on Amazon and then request books from the library that I thought she might like. In Australia there are children's book awards each year (much like your Caldecott Awards) and the finalist books are usually worth a read.
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