Ratings System
Book Rating System
We developed this rating system to provide a means of assessing the appropriateness of a book for a child or young adult, based on the content of the book. This rating system is meant to be a quick guide for busy parents who want to know what objectionable material is found between a book's covers.
Our reports include a wide array of potentially controversial content. Some of the included content may not seem controversial at all to some, but it is included so parents can be aware and guide their child's reading as they see fit. In developing our rating scale and the driving criteria, we took inspiration from existing systems for movies, television, and video games while trying to tailor our criteria for books and the current public discussion surrounding them. We have provided graphics outlining our rating system, the driving criteria for each rating, and associated definitions we used in this system's development below.
Our rating determination is for the work taken as a whole- while the cited content alone may justify a higher rating, the work taken as a whole may have mitigating factors that lead to a lower rating. A good example of this is To Kill a Mockingbird. The book contains terrible instances of racism that would fit well in the "Minor Restricted" (3) rating. However, taken as a whole, the book has a positive narrative rebuking racism and contains significant historical value. Therefore, we have assigned it the "Teen Guidance" (2) rating. In some instances, a work may have mitigating factors, but we may find those factors as not enough to justify a reduced rating due to the severity of the cited content.
We strive to be as objective and judicious in our reports as possible, but ultimately the ratings assigned are our opinions. We hope our assessments are useful to individual parents and the community at large.
"Pending Final Review" indicates a book that is pending our full review, but contains verified information provided to us by third party individuals. We have screened the citations and confirmed they are contained within the relevant work, however we have not read the work in full and as such cannot assign a final rating.
