How To Judge a Book by It’s Cover – Momma Turtle Style

I know the Young Llama did a post on this, but since I’m the one that taught her how to judge a book by it’s cover, I thought I’d write my own musing.

These days, finding a GOOD, CLEAN book is HARD WORK. They just don’t “make ’em like they used to”. We have struggled for the past 5 years to find good books for our kids to read. Even though we are Christians, we don’t just read Christian books. We read classics and anything that is clean.

A few years ago, I started helping my girls choose books, as they moved from chapter books to teen/adult novels. I was shocked to find how difficult it is to find a good book! When I was a kid/teen, I read almost the entire kid/teen section of books in my library. I took out 20 books at a time (which was the limit at my local library branch.), and I did that every single week.

I was surprised to find that our local libraries (here and in our previous town) didn’t have very many kids/teens books that weren’t filled with magic, witchcraft, anti-Christian content, birds and bees references, violence, etc. So, I started judging books by their covers.

My system is simply this:

1. I look at the cover art of the book and the title of the book. If either of those things make me uncomfortable or violate my personal beliefs, I put it back on the shelf.
2. I read the back cover of the book or inside cover where the book summary is. If ANYTHING in that description raises red flags in my brain, I put it back on the shelf.
3. I flip through the book and read a page here and there. I have found quite a few books that SEEMED clean, but as I flipped through it, I found LBGT content, witchcraft, or birds and bees references. As a Christian, I don’t read things like that, so I put that book back on the shelf.

These are just a few simple steps to help you find good clean reads for your kids or for yourself. It is important to teach our kids how to judge something and learn to see the difference between right and wrong.

I hope this helps you find your next book!

Have fun judging books by their covers! -The Turtle Reader.