A Newsletter about Chapter Books

Honest reviews of the stories we're feeding our kids.

Hi, and welcome to The Snarf. This is a newsletter that reviews kids’ chapter books. I’ve been reading to my son most nights of his life, and a few years ago we started churning through chapter book series. Some are spectacular, some your kid will love and you’ll roll your eyes at, and a few you’ll want to make up any excuse to not take home (“ooh, see that symbol in the corner? That means it’s not for sale.”)

I generally shy away from telling people what to get and what not to, but I’ll try to give you all the info you’ll need to make a decision. You might want agreeable values, diverse casts, or just something your kid will enjoy (or that you will enjoy), and I’ll do my best to give you a sense of what’s out there.

I’ll also have a lot of thoughts on the narrative structure, values, and random things that I can’t help pointing out (like the series that doesn’t give its second main character a name until halfway through the third book), but I’ll have a section at the top where you can get some quick info so that you don’t have to scan the whole thing if you mostly just want to know if it has a lot of pictures because your kid needs a lot of pictures.

The posts will all be archived, so you can always check out previous reviews, but I’m doing this as a newsletter because it turns out that one of the more soul-sucking activities in life is constantly reminding people that you have a blog.

The first review will be on the Magic Treehouse Series, and I’ll be doing these once a week for as long as I can. For now, I’d be honored if you clicked that nifty blue button right there: