Unpaid Review of Literati Kids

An honest, unpaid review of Literati Kids Book Club, a monthly book subscription box for kids ages 0 to 13. We’ve been using it for months now and have thoughts, both good and bad, to share!

What is Literati Kids?

Literati Kids is a monthly book subscription box for ages 0 to 18. Each book box tier is called a "club," and they are grouped like this:

Neo - Ages 0 to 3
Sprout - Ages 3 to 5
Nova - Ages 5 to 7
Sage - Ages 7 - 9
Phoenix - Ages 9 to 12
Titan - Ages 13+

How Do Literati Book Clubs Work?

First, you pick a club and fill out some information about your reader. Once you've filled out a profile for the child or teen that you're subscribing, you'll receive 5 curated books each month, along with an illustrated piece of art and small goodie (like a pen, or a sheet of stickers, etc.).

To subscribe to a club it costs $9.95 per month. The cost doesn't include any of the 5 books, but it does include the piece of art and any goodies in the box.

The books themselves are priced individually (prices match or are less than Amazon pricing) and you can choose which books, if any, that you want to keep. You do get a slight discount if you buy all 5 of the books. Any books you don't want, you can return for free with an included pre-paid return shipping label.

The total for all 5 books is always around $60 (not including the $9.95 you pay to subscribe). However, if you decide not to buy all the books, you won't get the extra discount on the books you do keep.

What We Like About Literati Kids

While I have some reservations about this book subscription box, there are definitely things that we like about it. Here's what Literati does well:

Excellent selection of books! Some new books, some older, but overall really quality titles.
The mix of genres is fun! I like that we received activity books, non-fiction, and fiction.
It's great to be able to try out books without committing to purchase.
You can skip months and put your subscription on hold indefinitely.
They have a donation program that allows you to send back gently used books you no longer need and they'll deliver them to homes and communities that need support.

What We Didn't Like

Of all the children's book subscription boxes we've tried so far, this is our least favorite. Here are few things we didn't like about Literati Kids:

It's a pain to keep up with. This may not be a problem for someone better organized than me, but I found it hard to keep up with the returns. A couple of times we received books we already owned and I did want to return them, but it was inconvenient to get to the post office so I'd set it aside, forget about it, and then miss the deadline and end up paying for the books anyway.
It's the most expensive book subscription service we've tried and I do think there are more cost effective ways to build a home library.
I was not impressed by the art or the goodies (they seemed like cheap dollar store items to me) and they didn't feel worth the $9.95 charge every month, nor did they add value to my child's reading experience.
A couple of times we received books that we could tell were used (ripped pages, dirty finger prints). I probably wouldn't have minded this so much except I still had to pay the full price for them.

Our Unpaid Review of Literati Kids Book Club

While there are aspects of Literati Kids that we enjoyed during the months we subscribed, ultimately I cancelled our subscription. It just wasn't the best fit for us, especially after trying other children's book box subscriptions.

If your top priorities are a good selection of books and being able to try before you buy, then this might still be a good subscription for you.

However, if your top priorities are affordability and convenience, there are better book boxes out there! Check out more of our book box reviews below.