ReadItDaddy is dropping its rating scores from next week...

Review scores eh? They're always the subject of much controversy and speculation. Why do we feel the need to validate something with a number, a grade?

At ReadItDaddy, coming from a background of videogames 'journalism' (or at least, writing about videogames for magazines and web sites), scores have never really sat comfortably with me and yet they're often asked for (nay: demanded!) by videogame publishers.

The number at the end of a review can be the difference between sales or a company going under, and so many huge developers have ended up dropped by their publishers simply because their metacritic rating didn't break above the high 80s.

Scores have little or no relevance in children's books. Children either enjoy the books or they don't and if people are skipping to the end of the reviews here to see what number appears at the end, they're missing the point of the blog entirely - which is to give authors, illustrators, publishers and PRs an insight into what a child and her parents think of their books.

We'll be keeping the "Charlotte's best bit" and "Daddy's favourite bit" as a summary of the review, of course - and we'll do the same for our app and e-book reviews but from the start of next week our reviews will be going naked and score-less. We will still be nominating books and apps of the week too, but this time they will be the books and apps that are most demanded for reading and re-reading / playing and re-playing throughout the course of a week and will appear on a Friday rather than sporadically during a review week.

Hope you don't miss the scores too much, and as ever, we welcome any feedback on this.

Phil & Charlotte @ReadItDaddy