Don’t get me wrong: I fully support homeschooling. I have successfully homeschooled a relative through her last few years of school, and I think it’s one of the best things you can do for your kids if you can fit it into your life and your goal is to produce healthy, happy well-rounded kids. I am currently researching into the best homeschooling methods, literature, curricula and other information for my own daughter—which is how I came across this book.

Homeschooling Methods: Seasoned Advice on Learning Styles is a poster book for the rule, “Never judge a book by its cover.” If you did (like me), you would think, “Wow, this looks like an info-packed book that’s going to be super helpful in making an informed decision!” It’s actually quite the opposite.

The book proclaims that it’s a “homeschool convention in a book,” and that it will help the reader “discover what will work for your family and why.” Ultimately there are perhaps a dozen helpful pages smattered throughout over two hundred pages of religious propaganda.

Each section has quotes from the Bible, and most of the “scholars” and homeschoolers interviewed have religious backgrounds cited as their expertise. Homeschooling is repeatedly referred to as a family’s way of teaching their kids about God—which isn’t necessarily wrong, of course. You can include religion in homeschooling. I would hope with all my heart that, if included, it was supplemental—not an entirely faith-based education, which is sort of an oxymoron—but this book advocates for just that.

If I had wanted a book telling me to skip on actual science books and only purchase books written by Christian authors—as this book explicitly does in at least one section—I would have gone for a religious text. (No, I actually would never do such a thing, as science is science and faith is faith—and while the two have their places in the world, they should be kept separate.)

One section, on “relaxed homeschooling,” depicts the main points of the method as such: “You’re a mom, not a teacher. You’re a dad and the head of your household, not a principal.” Whoa—glad we cleared that one up front! The mother is automatically subordinate to the father, who is automatically the “head” of the household. Great teachings for forward thinkers here, folks.

I wholeheartedly do not recommend Paul and Gena Suzrez’s book of religious propaganda, which should instead be called Homeschooling Methods in God: Using Christianity to Brainwash Your Kid. I also urge caution in selecting your literature about homeschooling if you are thinking about it; nowhere on this book’s front or back does it indicate that it is a faith-based text. I also hope that it’s not what the average homeschooling conference is about; if so, I doubt I’ll be attending one soon.