Want to know how to talk about a book? Follow these simple directions!

How to Use Kid's Muse Notes

Kid's Muse is a resource for book groups and for individual readers. You can find recommendations on what to read, use our questions to stimulate discussions, read about what other groups are doing, and contribute your own ideas.

The Review section of Kid's Muse Notes gives you a feel for a story without spoiling the plot. We try to feature books that you may not hear about on your own. You'll hear plenty about the next Harry Potter book, but what about Granny the Pag?

The Questions section that follows the review should spark stimulating discussions. Sometimes the questions reveal a lot about the plot, so you may want to finish the book before you read them.

Reading levels reflect our ideas about age appropriateness, which are based on many years of collective experience with children's literature. Some of you may consider our reading level recommendations conservative (i.e. old), but we firmly believe that children enjoy reading more when they read at their developmental level, and there are more than enough great books out there for each level. We all know ten year olds who read Hemingway, but why not read the good stuff for 10 year olds?

To Search our Site, click on "search" in the left hand column under sections or use the search box in the upper right. Search by title, author, keywords, genre (type of book) or reading level. The categories make it easier for you to find Kid's Muse Notes on books of a specific genre. Just click on the category name in the left column for a list of books in that genre. Each book is listed in only one genre (i.e. fantasy) but may also be listed in the additional categories of prizewinners, books for reluctant readers and series.

Check out our Book Groups section for stories and reading lists from our readers' book groups. Each month we'll highlight a book group from around the world. Tell us about your club and you may see yourself featured on our site. It can be all-children, children-parents, mother-daughter, or whatever combination you've come up with to enjoy discussing books. If you send us your book list, we'll add that, too.

The Buy Books link shows you options for buying books on-line. Since we do not charge for all these great ideas, we'd love it if you'd buy your books through BookMuse. All of the vendors on the Where to Buy Books page will send us a small percentage of what you spend on books. That's one way we can pay for all this.

Reader Picks allows you to find out what our readers are recommending and to write reviews on your favorite books.