The Literate Mother

I'm back to the blogging world! :) Yes, it has been a busy few months, but I'm planning on getting back to my blog and update a few things.

Here's an article and website that Eric's aunt passed along to me. I thought it was an interesting article and the website has been helpful. I appreciate what they are doing to try to help parents stay in informed with what their kids are reading. It's impossible to pre-read everything when you have avid readers (like Caleb) .... and you hope they use their own moral compass when reading books, but still I think this idea is great and their reviews are in depth. Hopefully they will continue to add lots more books.



M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E

Do You Know What Your Kids are Reading?
By Jennifer Hafen Stevenson

The Problem with Recommendations

A few years ago I asked our elementary school librarian for a read-aloud suggestion for my two oldest children, then 10 and 8 years old. After asking me a few questions, he suggested a medieval story about a boy living a parallel life to King Arthur. “Great,” I thought, “honor, glory, and friendship in 12th century England; the kids will love it!” Unfortunately, after we were entrenched in the book, the story line of a teenage romance and an unwed, expectant mother surfaced. I edited on the fly for the rest of the book, but was disappointed that our librarian suggested a book I had to modify for my children.

Last spring our family was on vacation and I stopped in a small bookstore to ask the proprietor what the young people in the area were reading. She recommended a series about a young English orphan girl who, disguised as a boy, joins the crew of one of Her Majesty’s vessels as a ship’s boy. I purchased the first book in the series and, luckily, read it before recommending it to my children. This book, marketed to young readers, contained foul language, murder, child molestation and attempted rape. I would have been devastated had I, based on the recommendation of others, given one of these books to my children.

A Parent’s Responsibility

As parents we are responsible for much of what our children experience in their young lives. We are often very vigilant about what movies our children watch. We research the rating it was given, check several trusted websites to monitor exactly what objectionable content it may contain and ask friends and family for recommendations before taking our children to the theater. We are also wary of violent video games and only buy those with an age appropriate rating. But when we take our kids to the library or order a book for them from the book order, we are far less attentive.

In the defense of parents, it is much more difficult to ascertain the content of a book. Rarely are any clues given in the synopsis or dust jacket about any questionable content. Even scouring book review sites may not render any useful content information for parents because each reviewer has a different level of comfort with adult or offensive material aimed at young readers.

Many parents try to pre-read their children’s books, but with a houseful of voracious young readers, parents with limited reading time are quickly overwhelmed and give up. In frustration we proclaim ourselves simply grateful that our children are reading at all.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Just over two years ago, a friend and I found ourselves in this exact situation. Unable to keep ahead of our young readers at home and frustrated we could not find the content information we were looking for online, we started our own website.

At TheLiterateMother.org, our goal is to provide reliable content ratings for youth and young adult literature, focusing on books 4th – 12th grade. We feel it is important for parents, teachers, librarians and concerned adults to be informed about the subject matter children encounter in books. Every book posted on our site is personally read and objectively rated in four categories: language, violence, sexual content and adult themes. Each of these categories is given a rating between zero (no objectionable content) and five (an excessive or disturbing level of content). We then explain, with examples from the book, the reasons behind the rating, and add our personal opinion of the book. This information helps parents and concerned adults suggest or discourage certain books, discuss sensitive material or simply strike up a conversation with a child about the book he or she is reading.

“I cannot live without books.” Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1815

At The Literate Mother we love books and agree with Mr. Jefferson that we cannot live without them. We would never want to discourage anyone from reading; on the contrary, it is our belief that there is so much age-appropriate, quality literature available, that no one needs waste their time on inappropriate or shoddy writing. It is our hope that with the help of our website, parents will take a more active role in selecting and discussing the literature their children read.

When visiting The Literate Mother, be sure to click on the “subscribe” button to receive our twice monthly emails highlighting the books we have recently rated. Whether you have a sensitive child you want to steer away from certain topics, a voracious reader you would like to guide toward more appropriate books, or just want to be informed on the subject matter to which your young reader is exposed, we hope you will find help at TheLiterateMother.org.