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Love Me Tender

(2008, Fiction - Family Life, Written by Audrey Couloumbis)
  • Is it age appropriate?

    About our ratings

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    Not age appropriate for kids under 8, age appropriate for kids over 9; suggested age 9.
  • Is it any good?

    4.0
  • Common Sense says

    Touching mother-daughter tale for tweens.

Why We Rated This on for Ages 9 and Up

The good stuff

  • Messages:

    The focus is on loving family members despite their mistakes, forgiving one another for past failings, and learning how to communicate better.
 

What to watch out for

  • Violence:

    Not an issue.
  • Sex:

    A family discusses how a parent was upset that a woman was having a child outside of marriage.
  • Language:

    A mother threatens her kids often, but it's understood that they are empty threats.
  • Consumerism:

    Few references to products including one mention of Coke and talks about Elvis.
  • Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

    Not an issue.
 

What Parents Need to Know

About Love Me Tender

Parents need to know that there isn't anything objectionable here. There's discussion of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and possible divorce, however the majority of the book deals with the complicated relationships that occur between family members. This is a good novel for families dealing with a major shift in female relationship dynamics.

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Families Can Talk About

  • Families can talk about forgiveness and the importance of communication within families. How did Elvira and her family communicate before they went to Memphis? Did you see any similarities between Mel and Clare's relationship versus Elvira and Kerrie's? What about Elvira and her mother's relationship versus Mel and and her mother?

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