Common Sense Media is a powerful nonprofit that's dedicated to "improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology." Among parents and educators, the group is best known for its work in Internet safety and digital citizenship and its reviews of movies, TV shows, music, and games.

It's easy to be seduced by Common Sense's authority. It has an illustrious board of directors (Chelsea Clinton!) and important advisors (the dean of Stanford's medical school!). It has received major grants (the MacArthur Foundation!), and it's even been praised by world leaders (Barack Obama!). What's not to love?

Well, when it comes to book reviews, it turns out there's plenty not to love. In fact, its book reviews are frightfully inept and tremendously dangerous.

Common Sense's "reviews" are essentially ratings in which books are assigned a precise "age-appropriate" level and a star rating for overall quality. They're also evaluated on "the good stuff" (educational value, messages, and role model) and "what to watch out for" (violence, sex, language, consumerism, drinking, drugs, and smoking). There's a paragraph about each book ("What Parents Need to Know") and some suggested discussion points. Common Sense claims its reviews are written by professionals, including teachers and librarians.

Take, for instance, Jacqueline Kelly's Newbery Honor--winning The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. According to Common Sense, there's a whole lot to watch out for, including a Civil War battle, mating animals, a 17-year-old who falls in love, and a grandfather who says "hell" and "damn" while drinking whiskey and smoking a cigar. Its educational value? "This story of the South in 1899 includes lots of historical details." That's better than Gene Yang's Printz Award winner, American Born Chinese, fared. His groundbreaking YA graphic novel ("iffy for ages 12-14") has no "good stuff" at all--and watch out for ethnic stereotypes, violence, consumerism, and smoking.

For Common Sense's reviewers, children's literature is just one big minefield of scary topics, and their job is to comb through books for any offending passages. The message is clear: based on narrow criteria, some material is problematic, children need to be protected from it, and it's the job of teachers and parents to help kids avoid questionable content. The offending incidents are presented without context, while the overall message, intent, and literary quality of a book are rarely addressed. Book after book, Common Sense reviewers harp on the negative while the positive aspects of reading broadly--including tackling books that are challenging--are never addressed.

At Common Sense, Toni Morrison's masterpiece, Beloved, has apparently no educational value; furthermore, "sensitive readers of any age might find this material too disturbing to make the book worthwhile." Statements like this play right into the hands of book censors. And it doesn't help that the age-appropriate ratings are frequently at odds with what most librarians recommend and with the grades that these books are taught in school.

I'm hardly alone in raising a red flag about Common Sense. A joint letter to the organization, addressing these same issues, was recently submitted by the leaders of the National Coalition Against Censorship, the National Council of Teachers of English, PEN America Center, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, the Association of American Publishers, the International Reading Association, and the Authors Guild.

Common Sense Media has 10 beliefs, and the first is, "We believe in media sanity, not censorship." True, they aren't censors. But by promoting such biased and ill-conceived "reviews," they're making censors' jobs a whole lot easier.