3,000 nights. That's a rough total of how many evenings I've been reading children's books to my kids. I'm your typical millennial dad in a lot of ways. I have a wife, 2 kids, and a cat. I like hiking and coffee (not necessarily in that order). I grew up with a healthy dose of Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, The Berenstain Bears, and a few more Choose Your Own Adventure style books than I care to admit alongside all of the Saturday morning cartoons I would watch. I was never what anybody would consider a huge reader (outside of some serious Harry Potter binge sessions of course), but over the course of my life I have gotten to the point where I would add "Reading" to the hobby portion of any type of profile I would fill out.
I didn't start reading to my kids for any main reason other than it's just something to do with a tiny little human to fill in the gaps between nap #4 and nap #5 though. We of course had a few kids books laying around from baby showers and whatnot, and we started to develop an evening bedtime routine that consisted of bath time, saying good night to every stuffie in the house, and then laying down to read a few books together. At first I would just read these because it was part of the routine. Over time it became a bit more of a performance. Doing the voices, making sure I crush the rhymes, and pausing in all the right spots to let them soak up the illustrations.
Finally I started developing opinions. Ok now this is the point where a lot of blogs might talk about their qualifications for having said opinions which are always incredibly impressive. I'm not trained in children's literature. I'm not a teacher, or a librarian, or anything fancy like a child development specialist. What I am is just a normal dad who reads a lot to their kids every night and I review these books from that perspective. I'm not going to use fancy language or other things normal parents wouldn't understand when talking about a book and I'm just going to share my thoughts in a way that is very accessible and useful to other parents who are looking for book recommendations or information about specific books parent to parent.
What I Review
Anything that I've read to my kids that I have opinions about and want to share. Sometimes this is the absolute classics that already have millions of professional reviews, but where I still want to throw my $0.05 in. Totally obscure books that don't even have a Goodreads entry, but are so bad I just need a place to vent. Sometimes books that everybody else seems to love that I don't, and vice versa. I will probably try to keep my reviews anywhere from the 0-year-old "this board book can be chewed on and still survive" type books to the "this is probably almost a young adult book, but I read it to my pre-teen kids and they still liked it" ones. Not very exact I know, but I don't want to pigeonhole myself here. I will take recommendations of books to read to my kids, that's actually where some of the best new book discoveries have come from. I'll never accept any compensation in exchange for a review though. All reviews are coming to you unfiltered with no strings attached.
How I Review
I've identified 6 criteria that I think make up a good book. I'll rate each book from 1 to 5 on each of these. Word of caution though, this isn't super scientific, though I'll do my best to try not to let feelings like nostalgia cloud my judgement on a mediocre book from my childhood that for some reason I remember fondly.
- Writing quality: Not every book needs to be Goodnight Moon. These are children we're reading to of course. Writing still matters though, and it doesn't take a PhD in children's lit to tell the difference between an author who put their heart and soul into a book and some copy editor who just copy and pasted lines out of some TV show script to fill up the pages. Simplicity is one of the keys here. Does each word matter or is it just a lot of filler?
- Read-aloud fun: My personal favorite. Can reading this book become a performance? Can I do voices? I will make sure to judge the book by its own merits, and not my bad performances of it to my kids.
- Holds up on re-reads: This one is big. With a bad adult book, you can just toss it aside and forget it when you are done. A bad children's book might be a lifelong problem if you can never successfully sneak it out of the house for good. The best children's books are better on the 100th read than the 1st.
- Kid engagement: If a tree falls down in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The same is true with kids books. If they can't hold a kid's attention, can it actually be a good kids book? That's the whole point of this genre right? That kids like it? While I can't speak for every kid, I have 2 good data points in my own household on what a kid thinks of a book based off if they actually want to stop jumping on the bed and sit down and listen to it.
- Message and values: Not every book needs to teach something, but these are kids books so a lot of them do. Are they teaching the right things? Are they being way too heavy handed with the lesson to the point where it feels like a lecture?
- Dad Survival Rate: Ok actually this is the most important. Do I lose a little bit of my soul with each read? Or do I get so excited by a book that I might actually sneak it off the shelf when the kids aren't home to practice read-alouds in front of a mirror (I'm not going to tell you if that last part is an exaggeration or not).
If a book is good on these criteria expect it to get a 4 star. If it's great maybe it gets the coveted "Dad's Pick" with a 5 star. For one of the few books that have somehow survived a parental purge that are horrible, expect a scathing 1 star review with no punches held back.
Blog Notes
I am doing this blog primarily because I love children's books and want to share that love with other parents who feel similarly. I do have Bookshop.org affiliate links on books discussed on the blog that I would make a small commission from if you purchase (no Amazon, because well I'm not a big fan of Amazon that's why). I've also built a book finding tool (that I think is really cool) to help parents come up with book recommendations. I've also been using this a lot personally to pick new books for my kids to read. It's something I've always wanted personally because I can only bug my friends so much about what new books they've read to their kids recently.
If you have a question for me, a comment or correction, or just generally want to get in touch for whatever reason you can check out my Contact Page or find me on social media. One of the benefits to being a small blog is that I have the time to reach out to each of you individually (although sometimes life does get in the way so apologies in advance if there is a bit of delay in me getting back to you).
Thanks for reading and hopefully you enjoy reading the blog as much as I enjoy writing it.