Carousels/sliders are fine so long as the content is mostly superficial and they aren't huge (which is an annoying trend). I wouldn't use them for anything important, I would use them for some nice pictures to make a homepage less boring.
This. Don't put text on a carousel slide unless it's the title of a book, and even then, limit it to one capitalized word per second that the slide will be shown.
(You can use other text of comparable length, but make sure that, if you were to capitalize it like a book title, it would still fit the rule).
