My oldest child loves to read, and I am so thankful for it. I loved to read as a child, and we had plenty of books in our home library to keep up with this love. Our school had a library hour, and we got to take books home for the week. I remember one summer, we visited a second-hand bookshop where we bought books for cheap, and once we read them, we sold the books back and replaced them with the next set of books to read.
The Books I Loved Growing Up in India
As a kid growing up in India, the famous Enid Blyton books were the most popular ones we read growing up, and I wanted my kid to experience it. So, here she is, making her way through this beautiful series of books. And this is a stack of books that she read within the last three months.
That love of reading is why it is important to screen books for kids without taking the joy out of it. I do not want to say no to everything. I just want to know what I am handing over to my kid.
How Do You Determine What a Good Book Is?
Here is a question for you – How do you determine what a good book is if you have not read it? The answer is – You either trust that your kid will point out something that is not right, or you read the book yourself. Now, who has time to read all the books our kids want to read? Not me for sure. But I did have an experience that made me rethink that.
We bought the entire series of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid last Christmas. These are highly reviewed books, and we bought them based on those reviews. One day my kid asked me what the meaning of ‘jerk’ was. Later on, she shared her discomfort with some of the things in the book.. After skimming it, I was not comfortable with the content either.
The book is essentially the diary of a kid in middle school. And trust me, you do not want to read it. There is plenty of unwelcome name calling such as moron, idiot, took. stupid, etc. In addition, there is plenty of potty humor which I absolutely reject in a child’s book. Not to mention, there is plenty of attitude and bad behavior. So, that was the end of that book series. (Disclaimer: I have not read all the books, but from skimming a couple of them, it made me uncomfortable enough to make that choice for my kid. It was a very personal decision, and you do not have to agree with mine, and that is ok too.)
After my experience with this book, I knew that some form of screening would be beneficial to my kids. I do not read every page, but I do skim a book sometimes. It helps me feel at peace about what my kid is reading.
My MOM Standards
There are so many good books written that we can choose for our kids, and it is ok to pass up a highly reviewed book if it does not meet your MOM standards (yes, there is such a thing). Make sure your kid is reading literature with good content that also aligns with the kind of values you want your kid to have.
What I Look for When I Skim
When I skim, I look at the language first, and I notice how the kids in the story speak to each other. I also watch for crushes, romance, or jokes about bodies, and I ask if the book fits my child right now. I watch for potty humor too, and I have shared more about why I skip potty-humor books.
If I feel unsure, I do some research online. There are many places you can go to read reviews about a book such as Goodreads, Amazon, Commen Sense Media, and PluggedIn.
These are just some ways that I guide my child’s book list for purposeful reading. When I want a trusted starting point, I return to best middle grade book series I recommend and clean Christian chapter book series I love.
How do you screen a book before you hand a book to your child?
Books From My Childhood That I Passed to My Child
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