One for Your Bookmarks: Sex in the Library

It`s a common situation in a public library: an 11 or 12 year old is transitioning from kids books to teen, and mom is terrified her child will pick up a book with inappropriate things in it.  In other words, sex.  Said mom is convinced you have read every single book in your library and can tell her which ones have bad stuff in them.

Unless your superpowers are speed reading and mind reading (so you know exactly what Mom means by bad stuff), you`re going to have a little trouble answering this reference question.

Enter Sex in the Library, an awesome blog which will make you look like a library superhero.

There are many book review blogs out there, but I can`t think of many that have made it their mission to detail sexual content in YA novels.  Each review consists of a description of the plot, age recommendation and, very helpfully, a list of any violence and everything of even a remotely sexual nature.  In addition, each review is tagged with labels like `no cussing,` `nekkidness`and `homosexuality.`

The blog is meant for other librarians to help them decide if a book is right for their library or not, but it is very helpful when dealing with parents as well.  Because Sex in the Library reviews books with everything from a kiss to graphic sex, parents can find books that they are comfortable with their child reading.  And you can move on to helping the next patron.