As a middle school teacher, I find the fact that I have to wade through PG-13 and R-rated material in what is supposed to be considered a teen book. Don't get me started on the House of Night series by P.C. Cast. I understand that teens are becoming more aware, but do we really need to invade good literature with unnecessary smut? Also, it highly limits the books we can use in our class. Just recently John Green's Fault in Our Stars was pulled from many school libraries. The book itself is well-written and has a beautiful story; however, the author found the need to include a racy scene and now it is unusable.
I want our students to read material that has an enticing story line, dynamic vocabulary, and a theme that makes them ponder the greater meaning of life. Our middle schoolers should be reading something better than Twilight and the Divergent series. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed those stories as much as the next person, but they aren't valuable in an educational environment and I would never want my students using these novels to learn character and theme analysis.
With all of this in mind, I understand that there are websites to review books for parents (i.e. Common Sense Media); however, what about the educational value of theme, vocabulary, and appropriateness of the material for classroom use. I plan on reading books and giving them a rating from 1-5 on each piece above. The questions I will ask are: Do the books have a valuable theme? Are the books devoid of inappropriate material? Is the vocabulary challenging enough for our middle school readers?
I hope to hear all of your comments as well.
Happy Reading!
Sarah
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