The Dove Foundation, known for awarding its highly regarded blue-and-white "Family Approved" seal to movies and DVDs, has added a new book category for reviews and endorsements.

"We've always tried to respond to the market demand for our services," said Dove Foundation CEO Dick Rolfe. "And we began moving in the direction of books by reviewing movie screenplays from writers who were looking for our endorsement as a means of attracting producers and investors."

For more than two decades, the foundation has reviewed movies and DVDs for family-friendly content, reaching an estimated 1 million viewers through www.dove.org and several partners' websites. Reviews and endorsements also are sent regularly via email to approximately 80,000 supporters and subscribers.

The foundation created a task force that resulted in the addition of "Faith Friendly" and "Faith Based" seals to identify films that contain religious content after being contacted by CBA officials in 2010. Soon Dove started receiving requests from movie producers to review novelizations and books related to their films. For example, Dove was asked to review five books based on Courageous, the hit Christian movie from Sherwood Pictures.

"Just as we valued Dove's 'Family Approved' seal for our film, we wanted readers of the various books associated with Courageous to have the same level of confidence," said Alex Kendrick, who co-wrote, directed and starred in the film, and co-wrote the novelization.

Discussions with several publishers followed, making the foundation aware of the need for reviews of books, especially teen and young adult novels as well as children's books, according to Dove Client Services Director Scott Rolfe.

"We trained a team of skilled book reviewers and an editor in Dove's unique review process," Rolfe said. "Now we have the infrastructure in place to handle the increased demand from publishers, authors and agents."

Dove has published reviews of more than 100 books and manuscripts to date, include older releases.

Click here for more information on the Dove Foundation's book reviews.

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