As a Librarian and a writer, I read a lot of books. Some I love, some I like, and some I just don’t get. But my purpose in writing this blog is not to add my opinion to the thousands out there that discuss YA literature (although you will find that, too). My purpose is to give readers, parents, and teachers useful information about a book. I will rate what I’ve read on the facts so that you will know just what you or the children who are entrusted to your care will be getting into when reading a book.
My intent is to be clear, concise and reliable — not to censor. Let’s face it, there are a lot of really great books out there. And there are a lot of books that are worth reading even if the content might not be right for a particular child. My hope is that with a little bit of information readers can make informed decisions about what to read or to suggest to the young people they know and love.
I rate books on a scale of one to three on all of the big categories of concern to most readers: Violence (V), Sex (S) , substance/alcohol abuse/troubling behavior or difficult issues (questionable behavior (?)) and the maturity level of the material (Grade). The greater the number of the V’s or S’s or ?s, the greater the amount of material that falls into those categories you’ll find in the book.
As reasonable people will disagree, I just want to remind you that my ratings will fall more on the conservative side. I hope that if you find yourself disagreeing, you will leave a polite, respectful reply so that my readers can judge for themselves whether a book is the kind of thing they think they or their children will enjoy.
Happy reading.
I Live for YA literature 