So you’d like to know more about what we’re doing and why and how. Here goes.

WHY? Because some of us would like to read books that aren’t heavy on the bad language, sex or violence; most parents of young readers want to know what kind of material their children are reading.

WHAT? Regular reviews of fiction, nonfiction, and young adult books (this broad category includes middle-grade books as well as books aimed at older teens), along with ratings for content.

HOW? Take a look at the ratings guide for more details.

Now… A few caveats: This site is not intended as any kind of “censoring;” we simply aim to be a resource. Movies and TV shows have ratings so viewers can decide if they will feel comfortable with the level of possibly offensive content for themselves and their families. We are here to provide more information, and information is power.

We can’t possibly cover everything, of course; there are far more books being published every week than there are movies coming out, for instance. But hey, we can at least try!

(On that note, if you love to read and can write a passable review, we’d love to have you join as one of our reviewing staff. The more contributions, the more we all benefit.)

This site will also try to avoid duplicating the work of other useful web sites and services. Other sites (and libraries and reviewers on sources like Amazon.com) provide lists of classics that are great reading and also tend to be, particularly by dint of their publication date, clean and inoffensive, so I won’t address those “oldies but goodies.”

I also don’t plan to mention Christian or faith-based books as a general rule, for similar reasons. They tend to be clean anyway, and other people cover this territory quite satisfactorily.

So Rated Reads’ focus is on books published more recently, and on providing detailed information about their content so you can make a good judgment about whether you really want to read them before you buy or borrow.

We hope you will find this site a valuable resource not just for which new books are not offensive, but also for books that are just plain good reading. Why read something that’s merely ACCEPTABLE when you can read something that’s REMARKABLE? We do want to provide you with some tools to make your reading just that much more satisfying.

Oh, and a special thank you goes out to those authors who not only have wonderful talent to share with us but keep it unsullied by unnecessary offensive material. Keep up the good work!