5 Tips on writing a riveting book review

Avisha Naicker

Writing a book review can be a daunting task for a primary school learner. I have had to go through this process a few times with my son before he became comfortable doing it on his own. Below are five tips that can be followed step-by-step to make this a less stressful and more exciting task. It is important to get your child to make notes while reading to make this task easier.

1. Summarise the book briefly

Pick out the main elements of the story. Keep it short, sweet and simple, but be sure not to give away too much. This is the best way to give the book context.

2. Highlight the most important aspects

This is where you can focus on the characters, theme and plot of the story. In a paragraph, discuss each of these and mention your personal feelings about it. For example, if there is a bad character in the book, you can write about why you dislike this character.

3. Include quotes

Including short quotes is a great idea as it helps to get your point across. Using a quote from a character can show, for example, how foolish the character actually is.

4. Conclusion

Keep your conclusion short and write a summary of the main ideas of the book. You must also include your personal opinion on the book – whether you liked it or not and why, and if you feel the author did a good job.

5. Rating the book

Star ratings are not that important in a book review, but if you want to, you can go with the conventional 7/10 example.