www.commonsensemedia.org

          Sex, violence, kissing, gay relationships, angels, soda drinks…are things things that parents need to be aware that their kids are reading about?  Well according to Barnes and Noble, they seem to be.  Recently B&N online joined forces with Common Sense Media to provided ratings and information on books for children and young adults.

          My first reaction when reading about this company and their idea is that it made sense.   They are trying to provide parents with a way to know what is inside the books their children are reading.  I liked that the company mentioned that it is not aiming to censor but to inform.   In theory this is a good idea.

          However, when I started to actually read some of the reviews, I wasn’t completely sold on the description being a good idea.  They point out every single little thing that is in the book from what I can tell.  In many cases, these are completely out of context.   In the reviews I read, it seemed like the person writing the review was putting their own opinions in.  I feel like the reviews should be non objective.  For example, for the book LA Candy by Lauren Conrad, they are pointing out a character having one night stands and tell the parents to discuss with their kids what the real life consquences of this would be.  Couldn’t you just leave it that one character has sex with multiple partners in the book?

          Another thing that bothered me a lot was reading the review for City of Glass by Cassandra Clare.  They point out more than once that a character is gay.  First off, I think when reviewing a book it would be more appropriate to say something like same sex relationship.  Secondly, why on earth is this even something to point out?  I guess you could defend it being full disclosure on the book but still, that seems like pointing out non important things to me.   If you do put that in there, why are you not pointing out a well that there is a girl kissing a boy?  Same difference right?

          What got considered red flag material verses yellow also did not make a lot of sense to me.  Using the same two books as examples, LA Candy is given a red for having lots of references to consumer products like phones and food yet City of Glass gets a yellow for attempted rape, inscest, and tortured angels committing suicide.  Do those ratings seem off to anyone else?  I also thought it was weird how they censor some cuss words in the review but not others and even at times just call them four letter words. 

          Since the ratings were confusing me, I decided to look more at Common Sense Media’s website to figure out who exact was coming up with these.  It didn’t really give an answer.  It gave a long list of people and what their position was but didn’t tell anything about them.  Are they parents?  Are they teachers?  Are they a religious group?  I feel like more information should be provided about this group.

           Not being a parent, I guess I can’t entirely relate but I feel like if a parent is going to be so strict that they will not let their kid read something that this scale says is a red light or for a certain age, maybe they should consider reading the book.  It is possible to truly gage a book based on a bias review from a somewhat unknown source. 

          I think this is a step in the right direction when it comes to finding ways to deal with censorism.  It is a good alternative that if executed better, could work to help parents know what their children are reading.

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/justin-timberlake-to-pen-golf-book_1109191

          So yeah, Justin is writing a book about golf.  Personally I’m not a golfer so I don’t care at all.   I think it will be interesting to see how well it does though.  It seems like it might have trouble since the target audience is a little unclear.  I don’t pictures many hardcore golf fans being Justin fans.  It seems like everyone I know that golfs is guys that would not be caught dead owning a book by Justin.  I would imagine a book by Justin would have appeal to young girls for the most part but I don’t know how many of them will care about golf.  What do you think?

          What do you think about celebrities writing books in general? What, if any, celebrity penned books have you read?

          Personally the book that has honestly had the biggest impact on my view of the entire world is Notes from My Travels by Angelina Jolie.  I have talked about it on here before.  It is such an honest account of someone seeing the reality of a third world country for the first time.   It is done in a journal fashion so it isn’t like it is award winning writing but it is very real. She is intelligent and an okay writing doing her best to convay what she was feeling seeing everything.

          One book that surprised me how much I did actually enjoy it was The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie.   It was written on a young adult kind of level and reminded me a little of something like Gossip Girl.  The plot and characters were all interesting though.  It seemed to parallel her own life quite a bit which was interesting.   The book is about a girl in LA so it is interesting having the things this celebrity character is doing be described by someone that has seen them.  More in depth then say if someone life me where to try about write about it.   I wouldn’t have first hand expirance which many writers that have character’s that are supposed to be famous don’t have fame similar to their characters.

          If I see it somewhere eventually, I will probably pick of LA Candy by Lauren Conrad.  I have never watched The Hills so I don’t really care that she wrote it.  I am interesting to see how it compares with Richie’s. Conrad has gone on record saying that she came up with an idea then other people helped her write it.  The same goes for Pam Anderson’s books (which I have brought but haven’t read yet). Richie as far as I know wrote the story out before approuching the publishers.

          The one and only cookbook I own is from the lovely Amy Sedaris.  It is so funny.  I don’t ever cook (plus I never have people over to cook for anyways) so I haven’t tried the receipes.  The whole book just makes me laugh though.  From the stories, to the pictures, to the drawings, it is just hilarious.  The first time I read through Children’s Game I almost died laughing so hard.  Example:

7. JR Cat Burglar- Lock the kids out of the house and see if they can break in.

9. – Train Robbery- Make a pretend train car by setting up chairs in a line.  Now have some of the children act as train passengers.  Have the rest of the children pretend they are Indians and rob the passengers.  If one of the “passengers” is a blond girl, encourage the “Indians” to kidnap her in hopes of making her their savage bride.

12. P.O.W. – Confine s0me of the children and give them a secret.  Now have some of the other children escort the confined children one by one into another room.  Once secure, the “guard” children will attempt to get the “prisoner” children to tell their secret through coercive means.

          So overall, I don’t mind books by celebrities.  What about you?