I used to work in my girls’ school when they were in public school and most kids didn’t even read, parents didn’t make them read and some kids were in 5th grade and didn’t even know how to read!

Charity Martinez – 4 January 2016

About Reviewing

How did you get started?

I homeschool my 4 daughters and they LOVE to read. We started running out of books and so we decided to incorporate reviews into reading of books. This helps with their writing skills for homeschool as well. Since then, our blog has blown up and we are getting requests like crazy!

How do you review a book? Is it a read first, and then make notes, or do you make notes as you go along?

The girls are the ones that review the books and they usually read the book and then write their reviews on the book. As far as I know, they don’t take any notes while reading.

What are you looking for?

We only review children, middle grade and young adult books. For young adult, we tend to stay away from anything of a sexual nature due to the girls’ ages.

If a book has a great plot, great characters, but the grammar is less than perfect, how do you deal with that?

The girls give thier unbiased reviews no matter what. They have told me before that they loved a book, but did not like the author’s writing style, however, they gave it the review they think it deserved based on what they imagined and read, not on a few grammatical errors or misspellings.

How long does it take you to get through, say, an eighty thousand-word book?

They read fast! Arianna is the fastest reader (she is wise beyond her years) and can finish a book this big in a few hours. She reads probably 2-3 books a day during their free time. Michaela is the next fastest and can read a book of that size within a day.

How did you come up with your rating system, and could you explain more about the rating system?

We have a 5 star rating system and the girls came up with it. They very rarely give half stars. The rating system is as follows:

5 – absolutely amazing and something I will read again and again

4 – Pretty good, I might read it a few more times

3 – Just okay, don’t plan on reading again

2 – Did not like, but might read something again by this author, just not this book

1 – One of the worst I have ever read

What advice could you give to authors looking to get their books reviewed?

If you want to have books reviewed by us, my advice is to be patient. The girls get a lot of reading time, but they are also still kids and love to do more than read so try not to expect an ultra strict timeline. We do our best to accomodate.

Do you get readers emailing you and thanking you for a review?

Yes, we do. A lot in fact.

My advice to authors on getting a ‘bad’ review (hasten to add that might mean a perfectly honest, well written, fair review – just bad from the author’s point of view) is to take what you can from it and move on. Under no circumstances to ‘argue’ with the reviewer – would you agree with that?

I do agree with that. The girls are critiquing books in a targeted audience that the books are written for. Learn from what they tell you and then use that knowledge to edit or for your next book. After all, its coming from the mouth of babes.

About Reading

We talk a lot about writing here on the blog, and possibly not enough about reading, which is after all why we’re all here. Why do you think people love reading? We’re seeing lots of statistics that say reading as a pastime is dying – do you think that’s the case?

I think that people love to read because it takes them to magical lands and lets them escape reality for a little bit. However, I do think reading is dying. I used to work in my girls’ school when they were in public school and most kids didn’t even read, parents didn’t make them read and some kids were in 5th grade and didn’t even know how to read! Our society has failed our future generation.

About Writing

What are the most common mistakes that you see authors making?

Commas!

We’re told that the first page, paragraph, chapter, is absolutely key in making or breaking a book. Agents typically request only the first five pages of a novel; what do you think about that? If a book hasn’t grabbed you by the first five pages, do you put it down?

Yes, Michaela is notorious for not wanting to read a book if it doesn’t grab her right away.

Is there anything you will not review?

We will not review anything out of our targeted genres or anything YA that is full of drugs or sex.

End of Interview:

Read the reviews of the books Charity’s daughters have read at 5 Girls Book Reviews.