About this site

Books Reviews By Dad is a bunch of book reviews of children's books by me, a new dad. I read books to my son, and then I (eventually) review them. A lot of kids books are pretty terrible, some are great, and it's hard to know which is which without reading them. I figured I'd help the world out by providing my awesome opinion about books to everyone. That's my opinion, not my son's opinion (unless he really loves or hates something, then I'll probably bring it up). His opinion will not influence my review unless it impacts my enjoyment in some substantial way. These are book reviews by Dad, not book reviews by Son.

Rating scale

The ratings scale is pretty close to arbitrary, though I think I have a good handle on what makes a 1/10 and a 10/10. I reserve the right to go back and re-score things if I feel like I've gotten too dense of a review scale. A 10/10 is a book I would like to read many, many times over and will enjoy multiple aspects of. A 1/10 is a book that made me angry to read. Meta-reasons for liking/disliking a book are totally valid! A 7/10 is a "pretty good book". A 3/10 is "not good". A 5/10 is "fine". Gradations between those as appropriate.

Things I consider include but are not limited to: Art, cleverness, wordplay, tedium/repetitiveness, predictability, ending, lessons/themes, nostalgia. I refuse to break out my ratings into any sort of component score - these are short reviews so you'll have to read them. If you can't read these reviews for content you probably don't care about the books you're reading to your kid anyway, or at least you won't care about my reviews.

All my ratings are perfect and inviolate, and disagreeing with me means you have bad taste. Or, as my wife would say, "just dad's opinion".