Internet hype sends out the message that any child who isn’t Yahooing is doomed to servitude or social assistance. Taking Your Kids Online doesn’t go that far, but it does argue that “what your daughter doesn’t know will definitely hurt her, in the sense of limiting her career options, later on.”

The book is co-authored by Arlette Lefebvre, a child psychiatrist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, and several anecdotes make it clear that she’s had lots of first-hand observation of kids on the Net. But one thing that becomes clear early on is that this isn’t just an Internet book, it’s a parenting manual.

The material is divided into separate chapters for six age groups, from three years to the teens, and each devotes as much time to a child’s developmental needs as it does to technology. But the practical sections on how parents can fit the Internet into the lives of their growing children are frustratingly vague. It would have been more useful to explore specific ways of helping kids with their school projects, or even their hobbies and interests. As any parent or child who has done research on the Net knows, that means mastering the search engines so you don’t waste hours looking for needles in haystacks. It’s a difficult but essential skill and the authors don’t provide much guidance beyond touchy-feely advice about challenging the imagination and encouraging them to think about values.

To its credit, the book includes a fascinating chapter on the popular filtering programs that block access to adult-oriented sites, revealing that some have corporate or political affiliations that affect what they censor. For example, CyberSitter is actually backed by the Christian Focus on Family organization and it blocks out anything to do with womens’ groups or gays.

The authors’ criteria for evaluating the credibility of information is thoughtful and well presented. In the end, though, the appendix of kid-friendly sites may be the most useful information parents will get from the book.