Is there a web-site that gives...

[Tabrett]

an in depth overview of children's books?

 

My dd read Stone Fox in 3rd grade many years ago. My next dc will be doing DITHOR 2/3 next year. One of the readers in the package is Stone Fox. Both my oldest dd and I HATED the book. We hated it because of how abused the boy was and that the dogs had to be killed in the end.

 

IMHO. there is no need for a young dc to read books with this type of subject unless it is a biography. I believe books were meant to be enjoyed, not make you feel horrible after you are done.

 

I have the DITHOR book list, but I don't know how to find out if a book has abuse or death.

 

Is there a web-site where I can go to find out if people are abused or the main characters or animals die? I'm trying hard to avoid books like Old Yeller, Bridge to Teribithia and Stand By Me.

 

Charlotte's Web is about as strong as I can handle.:glare:

[Kirch]

I don't remember any abuse in Stone Fox. :confused: The main character has to endure a really tough situation for a 10 yo, but he's not being abused (neglected, maybe). And one dog dies, but she's not killed--she dies because her heart gives out in the race. I bawled when I read it, though, and I totally get what you're saying about avoiding books where the main character or animals die. I pretty much avoid animal movies for that reason.

 

Anyway, bumping for you . . . I think I saw someone post something about a website (or blog, maybe?) like that recently, but I don't remember what it was. I'll go see if I can find the post.

 

 

ETA: Here it is: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews. I haven't actually used it, though, so I'm not sure how helpful it might be.

Edited October 15, 2010 by Kirch

[Tabrett]

In the beginning, Stone Fox hits the boy for looking at his dogs.

 

Grandfather is very depressed.

 

The boys dog dies.

 

To me, very depressing.

[Kirch]

In the beginning, Stone Fox hits the boy for looking at his dogs.

 

Grandfather is very depressed.

 

The boys dog dies.

 

To me, very depressing.

 

Oh, yes--I definitely agree it's a heavy book. I guess it just didn't occur to me to think of Stone Fox as abusing him. I just figured he heard someone coming, he thought they were after his dogs, and he hit first and looked later.

 

I don't blame you for wanting to skip it. I thought it was compelling, and we had some good/interesting discussions about it, but it was definitely a tough read emotionally.

[Mom22ns]

Oh, yes--I definitely agree it's a heavy book. I guess it just didn't occur to me to think of Stone Fox as abusing him. I just figured he heard someone coming, he thought they were after his dogs, and he hit first and looked later.

 

:iagree:

While I cried at the end of this book, ds read it in second grade and loved it. He still lists it in his all time favorites and remembers it well in 8th grade.

 

If you have a sensitive reader, I can understand not liking it though(dd doesn't like to read anything where the animal dies in the end).

 

I don't know of a site that gives that type of reviews for children's books, but I thought I'd bump this for you one more time.

[Farrar]

I'm not a fan of the Commonsense media site - sometimes their ratings are very slanted against certain topics without much clarity (as in, there will be a book that they say has good messages about being against violence but then they'll rate it as inappropriate without being clear about why - perhaps because there's violence depicted? But who really knows...) so I don't find it to be a very neutral or precise source of information. However, for conservative Christians, it's probably pretty on target. One of the things they pretty much always rate as inappropriate that annoys me is anything with gay characters. Also, not every book or movie is on there.

 

I think the best source of information is Amazon. It's rare to find an unreviewed book and they have excerpted the SLJ, Publisher's Weekly and other well-respected reviews so you'll get a picture of the content. Anything that's an assigned reading will inevitably have dozens of reader reviews as well. If there are that many reviews there's a very good chance that someone else will have had the same issue as you. It's not perfect and new books or less popular books may not have as much information to make an informed choice, but it's not bad.