Becoming a Kids’ BookBuzz Reviewer

 

**6/19/20**

Kids’ BookBuzz is not accepting new reviewers at this time. Many of the publishers are unable to send us printed copies of picture books due to warehouses being shut down for COVID-19. If you would like to submit an application, we’ll keep it on hand and reach out to you when we open the program back up again.

 

Would your child (age 5-18) be interested in reviewing books for Kids’ BookBuzz? We have many children’s picture books, early reader, teens, and young adult books available.

We expect that reviews done by the kids will be relatively “raw” in nature. We instruct our copy editing staff to do minimal editing. We will correct punctuation and make sure that the review is coherent and meets the word count. If you have a younger child, he/she will be most likely be dictating to you what the book was about and their opinion on the book, and a parent will write up the review. If you have an older child, this is a good experience for them to learn how to retain details of a book they just read and provide their opinion on it for others.

Older kids will be able to also select books from our other 30 book categories (such as cookbooks, science fiction & fantasy, self-help, pop fiction, historical fiction, etc.)

It will be the parent’s responsibility to research each book you request, be that on Amazon or Goodreads. We do our best to flag books that may have objectionable content for kids, but we also cannot pre-read every book we receive. Fair warning: That’s the parent’s responsibility.

We strictly protect the privacy and security of your child. We never list last names on their reviews — only their first name and age.

Occasionally, we receive a Sponsored Review order from an author or publicist who is requesting that someone from Kids’ BookBuzz review it. As the point of contact for your child/ren, we’ll email you with that book title to see if your child is interested in reviewing it. If it is assigned to him/her, these reviews have a strict due date that will be communicated to you. Best of all, your child will be paid to review it!

Book reviews are uploaded into our easy-to-navigate online database, so whoever is supervising the child reviewing for KBB needs to be comfortable using that. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or staff to upload your child’s reviews into the database for you. It’s not hard. Promise.

Here’s what we expect from your child:

Be an active participant in selecting books to review. We understand that school often takes up a lot of time or sports or summer vacations. That’s okay. But if we see that your child hasn’t requested a book in several months, he/she will be removed from the program, because we have a long waiting list of kids wanting to join.

Turn in your book reviews on time. Generally, reviews are due the second Saturday of each month. Each book is assigned an issue (i.e., month). If your child chooses a book with a lot of pages, you may want to choose one due a bit further out. It’s also okay to ask for an extension. If your child selects a Sponsored book, there is no flexibility on the review due date.

Write the reviews themselves. Yes, the little ones will be dictating to mom or dad, but don’t write the review for them in your words. We expect that these reviews will be a bit more raw. We do very little copy editing on them. And if our copy editor needs something different, it will be a good learning experience for them to do the best they can.

Research the books you or your child are requesting. It is up to the parent to research the books we have available online. Occasionally, we hear from a parent that the book their child received has inappropriate language or topic matter. We don’t ever want your child to read something that does not align with your parenting style, so feel free to notify us and send the book back. We can notate your observations for the next reviewer.

Have fun! This is most important. Your child gets to keep the books we send to him/her. Our goal is to instill a love of reading into them.

 

Please note that we typically only open up the program to new reviewers about once a year. 

 

If you’d like to sign up your child for Kids’ BookBuzz, please fill out the form using the button below.

U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY!

Because we rarely receive ebooks in the genres that the kids typically select from, we must limit applicants to U.S. residents only. It’s just too cost-prohibitive for us to ship printed books outside of the U.S.

Book Categories

hippy_bee_short