Editorial Standards
These are the rules our editors work to. If you see a page that falls short of them, please tell us.
How books are selected
Books reach the site in two ways.
- Award recognition. We record winners, honor books, finalists and shortlisted or longlisted titles for the awards we track. Each award result is checked against an official source before it is shown. See how we verify awards.
- Editor's choice. Books on our curated lists are picked by an editor who explains the choice in a short note.
Publishers and authors cannot pay for a place on the site or on any list.
How we assign audience, ages and grades
Every book is given one audience: Children, Middle Grade, Young Adult or Adult. Most also carry an age range and a school grade range.
- We start from the publisher's stated audience and the category the book was honored in, then adjust for what is actually on the page: subject matter, intensity, language and reading level.
- A grade range means "a reader in these grades is likely to be ready for this book". It is guidance, not a rule. Every reader is different, and you know yours best.
- Books for adults are never shown on children's, middle-grade or Kindergarten to 8th grade pages. An adult book may be listed for grade 9 and above when it is commonly read in high school, college or graduate study.
- Books with sexual content are not shown on children's, middle-grade or Kindergarten to 8th grade pages, whatever their stated audience.
Content notes for parents
Where it helps, a book page lists content notes: profanity, violence, sexual content, substance use, self-harm, mature themes and frightening scenes. A note means the element is present, not that the book is unsuitable. When no notes are recorded for a children's or middle-grade book, the page says so plainly.
What we write, and what we don't copy
Book descriptions, author biographies and award summaries on this site are written by us. We do not copy publisher descriptions, jacket copy or encyclopedia text.
Cover images and author photos are shown only when we have the right to show them, and each carries its credit. If you hold the rights to an image and want it changed or removed, contact us and we will act on it.
Independence
We earn commissions from some bookseller links and show advertising on some pages. Neither affects which books we include, how we describe them or where they rank. Default ordering on our pages is based on verified award recognition and reader interest, never on commission rates. Our affiliate disclosure has the details.
We do not show star ratings or prices, and we do not publish reviews we have not written.
Corrections
We correct errors as soon as we confirm them. Every book, author and award-year page has a "Report an error" link, and you can also use the contact page with the topic "Correction".
When a correction changes a fact a reader may have relied on, such as an award result or an age range, we fix the page and keep a record of the change.