Star Opal sent me a thought provoking article on age banding – you know, the 11+ or 14-and-over age markers on books. Seems Philip Pullman wrote a piece in the Guardian about his experience with his publisher wishing to “age band” his books for 11+. He said no, and they refrained from marking the books. He acknowledges that “it soon became clear that other writers hadn’t had that sort of understanding, and had been told that it was going to happen, like it or not.”
Pullman is set against age banding (why is it that this phrase makes me think of the rings on trees?) because he sees it not as a guide, but as an exclusion:
[W]hen the book itself says 9+, or 11+, that figure has quite a different status. It looks as if the author is assenting to it; it looks as if I’m saying: “I wrote this for 11-year-olds. Everyone else can keep out.”
And I did not. When I sit down to write a book, I know several things about it: I know roughly how long it will be, I know some of the events in the story, I know a little about some of the characters, I know – without knowing quite how I’ll get to it – what tone of voice I want the narrative to be cast in.
But there are several things I don’t know, and one of those is who will read it. You simply can’t decide who your readership will be.
Barb Ferrer told me once about finding her book It’s Not About the Accent shelved within the children’s books at her local store, and demanding that the manager look it up because it was unmistakably mis-shelved. Her problem? The book is, in part, about rape. When the manager looked up the book, it was indeed a YA book, not a children’s book, and it was reshelved immediately.
But her book doesn’t necessarily have an age range on it, and I don’t know that it, or any book, should. The folks doing the shelving had a clear indication where it ought to be – the YA shelves, not over with the children’s books – but should the books themselves be marked to directly state what age range their readers should be? Pullman acknowledges that there certainly ought to be some guidance for children looking for suitable books, but that that guidance ought not come from a stamp on the book cover. He’s started an organization with a pretty clear statement of principle:
* Each child is unique, and so is each book. Accurate judgments about age suitability are impossible, and approximate ones are worse than useless.
* Children easily feel stigmatized, and many will put aside books they might love because of the fear of being called babyish. Other children will feel dismayed that books of their ‘correct’ age-group are too challenging, and will be put off reading even more firmly than before.
* Age-banding seeks to help adults choose books for children, and we’re all in favour of that; but it does so by giving them the wrong information. It’s also likely to encourage over-prescriptive or anxious adults to limit a child’s reading in ways that are unnecessary and even damaging.
* Everything about a book is already rich with clues about the sort of reader it hopes to find – jacket design, typography, cover copy, prose style, illustrations. These are genuine connections with potential readers, because they appeal to individual preference. An age-guidance figure is a false one, because it implies that all children of that age are the same.
* Children are now taught to look closely at book covers for all the information they convey. The hope that they will not notice the age-guidance figure, or think it unimportant, is unfounded.
* Writers take great care not to limit their readership unnecessarily. To tell a story as well and inclusively as possible, and then find someone at the door turning readers away, is contrary to everything we value about books, and reading, and literature itself.
The reasons are as much a statement of parenting as they are about marketing – that the individual needs and interests of reading children should be of more account than the age stamped on the cover. Which leads me to wonder, would I have picked up romance novels if they’d been marked “18+?” “NC-17?” I was reading Sweet Valley High in middle school, I think, and I thought those were books meant for high school kids (not so much now that I look back). I was a late reader, but once I did figure it out, I moved quickly through anything I read, and moved up in reading level as fast as I could. Joe at Forbidden Planet agrees:
Well before I hit my early teens I had gone through everything that interested me in the children’s part of the library and wanted into the adult section. The librarians, once my parents gave their assent, were quite supportive because they could see I was understanding and enjoying the books I was picking out (my first exposure to writers like Bradbury and Moorcock) and I’ve been devouring any book or comic on any subject that I think looks interesting ever since. It could have been very different – if I’d been knocked back from moving on to more mature books when I knew I was ready for them I could have been put off reading.
What’s your take on that one? Should publishers try to mark books by age range? Or does that, as Pullman states, advocate limiting and excluding the readership of a book far beyond the intention of the author who wrote it?
Having almost lost my first teaching job in the first week thanks to an irate parent whose 15-year-old checked out a library book for my class that contained the word “orgasm” (oh nose!), I know that teachers have to be careful about reading recommendations. It’s one thing for a parent to take their child to an R-rated movie (or the literary equivalent), but teachers don’t have that prerogative and can get in hot water very easily. When I taught Children’s Lit to pre-service teachers (a few years since I’ve done that), we talked about the “age-appropriate” issue a lot; I wanted my students to be able to judge that, and to KNOW if they were pushing the envelope (and be prepared for the possible response).
We used two standard systems (both covered in our big expensive textbook for the class), which I believe are the same ones Scholastic uses. One gauges reading level by grade, based on things like vocabulary and complexity of the writing, and the other measures interest level by age, based on story content factors. Kids in our schools get standardized testing all over the place, so most parents get told if their kid’s comprehension level is above or below grade, and how far. (The system maxes out at 12th grade; my kids were 12s from about 6th or 7th grade.) That’s a useful guide to whether a child will be able to read a particular book on his or her own. Interest level, while very subjective, can be helpful in determining whether a book would be good to read aloud to younger children who aren’t yet able to read it for themselves. (I remember reading the Narnia books to my kids when they were 4 and 6, and they couldn’t wait for more.)
No system is perfect, but a few guidelines don’t hurt anyone. It’s not censorship unless someone tries to enforce it rigidly, which I certainly don’t advocate. You don’t much need this sort of system for avid readers, but it helps for those kids who don’t read much, and who don’t enjoy reading as much as they do video games and TV. Giving them a book that won’t frustrate them with too much unfamiliar vocabulary, and that tackles issues at a level to which they will relate, is part of a strategy that will encourage them to read more.
Generally I’m against anything that limits access to any form of information.
However my own work is meant for adults, or at best teens with a strong constitution. They would not be a pleasant reading experience for anyone younger. In one of my stories a character, the hero, rips a man’s heart from his chest then squeezes it like an orange to drink the blood.
That’s not something I want a child exposed to.
The disclaimer at the front of the books should be enough warning though.
Ultimately it is the parent’s responsibility to make sure that their children read appropriate material. They should know how mature their children are and know enough about literature to be able to say “Not yet.”
Oh gods… I’m SOOOO torn on this one.
I wrote Bitter Moon to be read by my teenagers—aged 13 and 15. I was planning to write a Young Adult book. By the time I was done with the first volume I was so conflicted—and I still am.
There are sex scenes in Bitter Moon—not too explicit, but they are there. There are scenes between a young man and his sweetheart, and later there are scenes between the same young man and his best friend, and finally between the young man and his destined lover. I vetted these scenes through the thirteen year old—we drew the line at anything that gave her the ‘Ooooogies’ and had discussions about what was acceptable for young people yada yada yada. And I finally just sucked it up, wrote the book that needed to be written, and released the fucking thing.
Of course my parents read it. My mother was appalled. She felt there was too much sex.
One of my readers (you can tell I’m self-published—one reader totally counts!) was appalled. She felt there was too little sex—this book was not NEARLY as exciting as my others.
My daughter loved the books. She was totally comfortable with the amount of sex, she loved the characters, and she could give a shit if the hero shagged another guy.
Calling these books Young Adult (age banding) could totally cut off the already miniscule number of people who are interested in my books. Calling them ‘Adult’ and leading people to believe they are like my PNR series, is also misleading.
So far, I’ve stuck with the phrase ‘a different genre, with different rules’, but not everybody gets that classical fantasy doesn’t usually have REALLY explicit sex scenes.
And I’m still at sort of a loss—mostly I’ve been letting word of mouth (more powerful than I ever imagined) spread the book’s message, and it’s working—slowly—but it’s working.
I guess the short answer is, “I don’t know”. Age banding makes my daughter’s trips to the book store a lot shorter—but it almost kept her from reading ‘The Riddle-Master of Hed’, and that would have been a shame.
SonomaLass said:
I can’t imagine that there are too many 15-year-olds who haven’t already discovered – on their own – what an orgasm is. And know first-hand (pun intended) what one feels like. No matter how uncomfortable the parents might get.
I’m against the age-banding idea.
My mother is the librarian in an elementary school (grades K-5; ages about 5-11). It is her personal challenge to get every last one of those 600 kids interested in reading something. She struggles the most with the kids who read well below grade level who don’t want to be seen with a “baby” book. If books were age banded, these kids would refuse to read at all.
On the other hand, she has kids who read so far above grade level she already has trouble finding something appropriate for those kids in her library—if she were restricted in her purchasing to books banded solely for the age range or grades she teaches, those kids would be bored and left out. (And there is no doubt in my mind that her purchases would end up thusly restricted. Administrators love bright-line rules, no matter how real life actually works.)
For those who have trouble finding books appropriate for the kids and tweens in their lives, there are actually professionals who do this for a living who will advise you for free—they’re called librarians. They have advanced degrees. They are paid to know this stuff. They won’t think any less of you for asking, and they’re more likely to recommend something the kid will actually enjoy than a sticker.
Frankly I don’t understand the reaction against the idea: the labeling of books as children/YA/adult is a form of banding.
As the mother of (currently pre-litterate) kids who does a lot of book ordering from French online libraries (we live in the US) I love the idea of book banding, or at least some indication on books of both reading ability (I guess grade levels for reading are a good measure) and themes. Also because I haven’t found the local children librarians that helpful for stories for pre-readers: apparently parents are supposed to know their way around the English language kiddie classics, and that’s it.
On the lazy parenting accusations front, parents are not the only book buyers. It would also help for presents for friends/family I don’t know well (“books about train for a 5 year old who reads at 2nd grade level”), and also to figure out what to try next when I get the feel that my son has outgrown his current parent-read material.
This is coming from somebody who was a precocious reader, had a passion about mythology stories (rape, murder, torture) in third grade, read Boris Vian and (the translations of) Homer at 8 and worked my way through the “mens adventures” (the Executioner was a favorite) and the Regencies (I could get through 6 Barabara Cartland novels a day if I ignored my homework) sections of the library at 12. And I will note that now, as a mature 35 year old mother, a good chunk of my bookshelves is taken by stories labeled as YA.
Anyway, while the age banding criticized by Pullman would not necessarily be the most useful implementation, I would love a semi-reliable system for rating books (both form and content).
There’s a certain irony to being so opposed to the idea of censorship, and yet passionately putting the brakes on this whole age-banding thing. I mean, it’s just information, right? Whether a parent use it for good or bad depends less on the information itself, and more on how the parent chooses to interpret it. Personally, I am always in favor of giving the parent (or indeed, any purchaser) MORE information rather than less. It’s just a guideline anyway.
I am not a parent right now, but I’ve bought plenty of books for little children, and worked at the bookstore, and worked at the library. Not all purchasers ARE parents – some are aunts and friends and hapless attendees of birthday parties. Giving them somewhere to start – because of course, not EVERY child is a precocious reader, and sometimes the parents AREN’T actively encouraging the kid to read – seems like a good idea, or at least one that can’t possibly hurt. It IS up to parents to police a book, but sometimes it’s hard to get a sense of how complicated sentence structure is when you *can’t* look inside (ie, a special order that’s going to be shipped) or psychically guess content from the cover description. And contrary to popular belief, not having the time to read everything your kid is interested in beforehand does not make you a bad parent. Just a busy one!
I do see the counterargument to advertising the age on the cover in great big letters – because then it does become a competition – but there’s no reason not to put it on the copyright page, or next to the ISBN. It’s a way to concisely convey information for the busy parent; not a high and holy order that’ll prevent kids from reading what they want to. Or intelligent, willing parents from buying what their kids need. I am sure authors want to believe that their books are capable of touching a wide range of people, and deserve the biggest audience they can get. But as a consumer who’s shopping often shopping for someone OTHER than myself when I buy a book for a child, I appreciate all the help I can get.
First off, several of the above posts must have been from individuals that don’t have any children grade K-5th grade. The posts show an insensitivity to the plight many parents face. Whether I agree with age banding or not, I’ll blatantly put up front that while I LOVE to read and know about a lot of genres. I DO NOT know much about children’s lit or young adult fiction.
I dont’ spend a lot of time analyzing the seemingly endless supply of children’s books out there and their themes or appropriateness. Honestly, I dont’ know where to start (Have you SEEN how many different series there are??? It baffles the mind and the back covers really don’t give you a clue – Gossip Girl for instance… I’ve heard enough about it now that I don’t want my daughter reading that stuff… but from reading the back cover I’d never know that.)
So here I am, an avid reader with two young readers – an 8 year old reading at 5th grade reading level and a 6 year old reading Chapter books. As a parent, I am LOST in the children’s section. Age appropriate does not equate to reading level. I have trouble finding good books for my 8-year old because he’s not ready for the content thats in many popular YA books but he would be capable of reading it.
My daughter – heck I’ve always had trouble figuring out what books to get her to help her with reading because she’s hasn’t been on Bob books for two years yet she wasn’t until a couple of months ago ready to go for chapter books.
I’m always asking the bookseller for help because sometimes my son wants to get things that really aren’t appropriate and I wouldn’t know that unless I asked. Also the bookseller can help me find books that are age appropriate and reading level appropriate which is a hard match for my son.
I’m really not sure about my stance on the age banding but jeez give parents a break – they’re trying to do right by their kids by going to a “trusted” authority to find good books for them. Let’s not be so judgemental. As an author I would hate to be limited, but as a parent I got to tell you, it’s hard looking at a shelf of books with no age brackets and figuring out what to get your child.
Interesting that so many people see it as a potential problem for good readers.
Seems to me that most of the people who’ve posted about their childhood reading did read books that they knew at the time weren’t written for their age group. As a revolting small child, I was obnoxiously proud of myself for reading ‘hard’ books.
I believe that an 11 year old wouldn’t want to read a book marked 6+, but I can’t see why they’d feel bad about reading a book marked 14+.
(No-one’s mentioned it, but I did read somewhere that the idea of banding isn’t to facilitate parents – it’s just that more books are being sold through supermarkets, and it allows them to shelve the books easily.)
The American Library Association Free Access To Libraries for Minors lays out the issue well, I think. The ALA considers age-marking or ratings (like on movies) to be an attempt to restrict the material only to kids that age or over, even if there’s no rule stopping an eight-year-old from checking out a “teen” book. According to the ALA, “Constitutionally protected speech cannot be suppressed solely to protect children or young adults from ideas or images a legislative body believes to be unsuitable for them. 1 Librarians and library governing bodies should not resort to age restrictions in an effort to avoid actual or anticipated objections, because only a court of law can determine whether material is not constitutionally protected.” (The footnote is to a court case that found pretty much exactly what’s said in the sentence before the footnote.)
The problem is that what’s unsuitable for one parent is OK with another, and vice versa. (Believe me, I know this from experience!) Labeling for reading level is one thing – as long as you bear in mind that a lot of adult bestsellers aren’t any higher than an 8th grade reading level. But labeling for content? There are plenty of parents who would want the Harry Potter books in the adult section so their kids wouldn’t be exposed to them – which is fine if they’re the only ones using the library, but not good for everyone else. And every parent thinks that when they see something that says “fifth grade,” it means what they think their fifth-grader should be reading.
Foxhawke, I do know what you’re saying. Have you seen the Guys Read website by Jon Sciezca? It might have some good recs for your son. If you can get hold of a copy of Horn Book magazine, the reviews in there would probably be helpful for you too.
My older daughter is 13, and the sort of precocious reader who isn’t put off by anything that interests her: she read “Gone with the Wind” at 9 and is currently wending her way through Jodi Picault’s backlist. I don’t think the problem is with people like her, because they have the confidence to read what they want and ignore any guidelines anyway: and there’s not much embarassment in reading above your actual age, surely? I think the problem is, as others said, for those who are less confident readers: it’s bad enough to be worried about reading already, without the added pain of everyone seeing that you’re reading a book for “babies”.
When I was a child, Puffin books (in the UK) used to have a grandmotherly comment on the flyleaf as part of the blurb, which said something like “For confident readers over the age of 12, especially girls”, and I used to love that, because it made me feel great when I was reading it already at the age of 9 (or whatever), but since it was inside the book, there would be no embarassment for those reading below their actual age. Wouldn’t a system like that do as well?
Haven’t read the comments, yet, but I will. My take on the age thing is from buying things for nephews and friends’ kids. I always thought it was a guide for those of us who are clueless about what a kid would like, based on their age range. Buying Scrabble for a 3-year-old, for instance, would be age-inappropriate. But I figure that, after age 8 or so, those age guidelines are useless. Even a kidless adult can tell that a pubescent child is too old for Hungry Hungry Hippos.
I think notes about language, sex, and violence would be more pertinent for books (and movies and video games) than age ranges.
That said, I can remember checking THICK romances out of the library at age 11 or so, and the librarians never blinked an eye. Or checked with my parents, to my knowledge. Mind you, this was back in the 70’s, before the days of helicopter parents.
You know, I do think putting YA books in their own section to help readers find age-appropriate books is a good idea. But YA encompasses a broad range. My experience is that an advanced reader of 11/12 through adults will be perfectly happy with a Susan Cooper or Stephanie Meyer book (for example).
I can’t think of examples of children’s books that would easily be mistaken for YA, though. Maybe early reader novels like Charlotte’s Web? Although that one could technically straddle the line.
While I do sooo love the “parent your own kid” philosophy, I am currently writing YA fiction and I WANT help getting my work to those for whom it was intended. Just because the parent is a lazy pratt doesn’t mean I want the curious 9 year old reading about rape or abuse or even evil and death before he or she is ready to deal with those issues.
I like the trend, currently, of shameless adult fans embracing good YA fiction. But I’ll admit to liking the label, too.
Banding sounds a little over-restrictive without being specific enough to me. It seems to be more about specific ages than YA vs. Children. That’s just nitpicking without providing any useful information.
Added: I also have to agree with some of the parents who point out that it’s not that easy to tell YA from mainstream or other genres if you don’t know the landscape.
I’m in the book stores constantly. I was a teacher for middle school, high school, and college. I have kids in my life, though I am not a parent. I am a writer.
I still wouldn’t always know without doing research. And I don’t think busy moms always have time to VET the five titles their kid wants to pick up on Sunday. Let’s be fair, you know?
My objection would be stamping the covers with a specific age. But yeah—when my current WIP comes out (and is on the best seller’s list, naturally)* it would be helpful to me and everyone else if it was in the YA section. I want the right readers to find me.
*Stop laughing.
And since parents are often the ones buying or recommending the books… yeah, I’d like to think of us as partners in a sense. I’ll write books that are good for your kid. I’ll put them in the appropriate section. You buy them.
Alienating mothers and fathers isn’t going to help. It’s an uphill battle already. I mean, Harry Potter is a devil worshiper and Lyra wants to kill God, you know.
I would not choose a book for my own child, no matter how young. If you pick it out, chances are, unless you are reading it to them it will just take up space. I never did it with my oldest son who is quite the reader and a writer, and since my youngest son is autistic, he has to choose it himself because age-banding is especially useless for him.
If you are a relative and want to buy a book- find out what authors appeal to the child or give a gift certificate to a bookstore (my favorite present). You can’t go wrong there.
Back to the censorship thing—how is designating the suggested reading level, or the suggested age audience for a book censorship?
I work in a boostore, and am asked constantly about what is age appropriate for a child or young adult. I don’t have kids, nor do I read YA books, but I use the guidelines of books to show a parent what would be good for the child-both in content and maturity level. I have many parents who ask about YA books for their 11 year old. I always tell them that the content is on the mature side so they should be aware of it before buying a book for a child who does not have the maturity level. I don’t like the idea of banning books, but like the idea of ages on books as a guideline with the knoweledge that it is only a guideline-not the rule.
I think parents can afford to spend ten minutes on Google looking up “good books for kids.” But if they refuse, why not come up with an age-neutral system? Give books a TV-style rating – L for language, MV for mature-violence, M-A for mature/sexuality?
Heck, why stop there?
TSTL: Characters are too stupid to live
SQB: No real ending; book is Sequel Bait
NS-CW: Not Suitable for Christian Wackjobs.
JS: Jumped the Shark
JPS: Just Plain Sucks
How do you get ready to deal with those issues? How do you initiate a conversation with a kid about things that shouldn’t even exist in their universe? It was a long time ago for me, but I have vague memories of reading some book about a runaway teenage prostitute, which ALL the girls in my grade had read, and we had serious discussions about how that girl’s situation had come about, and what we would do in her situation. I think this would have been around age 12.
I think that reading about traumatic events is MUCH preferable to experiencing them. The stories may give the children some options that wouldn’t otherwise occur to them, should the children get into a bad situation. Sadly, by the time they hit puberty, a lot of children have already been in that bad situation.
I’m finding that a lot of parents don’t want their kids exposed to bad stuff not only because they want to protect their children from fear and shame and danger, but also because they don’t want to have to think about what they’d do if their kids got into trouble of some sort.
Also, a lot of kids who get into bad situations don’t tell their parents about it because they want to protect their parents.
It’s a weird, uncomfortable thing to have to think about, much less talk about. I think that letting kids choose their own reading material, and working hard at being totally open to talking honestly about it, is possibly one of the best ways to get kids ready to deal with issues.
Caveat: I’m not a parent, just a former child.
Suze
Well-said and I am a parent. In addition, I know that as a child if I couldn’t handle the graphic parts of a book, I’d skim thru them. TV and film is much more in your face and that is where most of our kids learn about sex, violence, etc. Kids usually are way ahead in knowledge of this sort than their parents think they are!
Suze speaks truth. I had to deal with “an issue” since I was five, and my reading and entertainment were so strongly restricted by my parents that I didn’t know something was wrong.
By the time I was 12, it was seven years too late.
Sometimes I wonder about fear-based parenting.
Count me in as another librarian (and writer) against this practice. Step into any classroom and you’re going to find a wide range of reading abilities and maturity levels. Those who struggle with reading skills are far more likely to succeed if they’re sustained by a love of books, and having to stick with books that are labelled as being for children much younger is a huge impediment to that love.
Not only that, but children don’t learn by reading strictly at their decided age level and proceeding neatly ahead year by year. They learn by venturing ahead to writing, and yes, content, that is just on the horizon of their understanding (and stuff that is completely outside that horizon tends to go straight over their heads – trust me as someone who read Stephen King’s IT at eight and completely dismissed the sexual stuff at the end). Books and subsequent conversations with trusted adults are the safest way for kids to learn about issues in the adult world. For instance, Judy Blume books are useful for kids who are the same age as the protagonists and going through puberty, but I think they’re even more useful for kids a year or two younger, to provide a frame of reference for when these issues do arise in their own lives.
As a writer, I’m also worried that this will lead to more direct censorship, in the same way that the MPAA exerts pressure on creators to tailor their material to a certain audience. I can easily foresee a publishing house taking the stance of, “This is a book for nine-year-olds, we bought it as a book for nine-year-olds and will market it as a book for nine-year-olds, and so you have to take out this, this, and that because those references aren’t appropriate for nine-year-olds.”
I am both a survivor of rape and was a child who loved to read. I’d really love to know how we lept from wanting to arm both parents and other readers with information about content to “reading is preferable to experiencing.” Honest. That’s a big jump.
Giving both the readers AND any guide who might be purchasing for others the appropriate information to select wisely is a good thing. Period.
And I know it sounds like no big deal to google a title before buying it but I also know it’s very often ridiculously unrealistic. When you are at the store and the kid flips and starts howling that all the other kids have it, your laptop isn’t right there for a quick search. Most parents are pretty busy. Sure, if hey PLAN to buy something, or if the kid aks first… but how often is life that convenient?
I’m a tad bumfuzzled that anyone would be bugged by a guideline that helps inform. That’s not censhorship. Giving helpful information? Come on!
It’s not informative—it’s arbitrary. Because who is to say what is appropriate for one ten year-old is appropriate for the next one?
I have two kids, both of whom read at a high school level, but they’re definitely not ready for many high school books. It’s MY job to figure out which ones will be appropriate and which ones won’t be. For example, the last time we were at the bookstore, my daughter asked me if we could pick up Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series. She told me several girls in her class had been reading them. They’re shelved in the Teen section, so I told her I wasn’t sure and she’d have to wait until I had the opportunity to check them out.
And for me, checking them out doesn’t mean age branding, it means coming home and checking out some reviews that talk about the content and this is actually one of the places where amazon and BN.com and Powells.com come in handy, because they’ll reprint reviews from PW, Library Journal, and Kirkus.
Just my .02 as a parent, rather than an author.
See, that’s the crux for me, Barb, and thanks for sharing your personal experiences. My mom knew that I was way past Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was in fifth grade.
A lot of the kids in my family and circle are like I was as a kid. They read way beyond their level. Now… I would much prefer to have read a book I hand them than to rely on any kind of book identification system. But I also have a niece who is a little sheltered, has a mother who is very over-protective and flips over a lot of what she feels is over-exposure, and she’s NOT a reader. So when I was buying for her it was more of a challenge.
Ironically, she’s 14 now an devouring Stephanie Meyer’s books… which thrills me. Her sister and I both agree if her mom ever read one she’d have a heart attack. What she doesn’t know…
Anyway… I want all the information I can get. I appreciate that help. If somebody wanted to print AGES 11-14 on a cover? No, I agree, that’s silly and counter-productive. But putting a book in the YA section is helpful to me. For me that’s all it’s really about: not denying anyone access to a book, but helping guide them to the right book.
Ah well… at least we all want kids reading, right?
Barb nails it. The word “appropriate” has been used repeatedly throughout this thread, and each time, I want to say, ” ‘appropriate’ in whose eyes? In which situation?”
“Appropriate” is a judgment call. And this is one of the reasons this proposal would be challenging to implement in any systematic way.
I remember the free book day at my grade school, when every grade got a choice of one out of maybe ten titles on their grade’s table….all hell broke loose when the stuff on my third grade table (marked for my “appropriate” age) was too easy, and I wanted a book from the sixth grade table….I didn’t. So I picked something random, gave it to a friend, and went home to re-read Ender’s Game. 🙂
A few people have commented that age banding = lazy parenting, and as a parent of a 9 year old girl, I don’t think that is necessarily true. I wouldn’t want a recommended age on the cover or spine, but on the inside cover, to be found along with the ISBN and often plot summary, would be useful. I examine nearly all the books my daughter reads, but things will sneak by me that I’m not comfortable with her reading at 9 because she reads so much—as many as 20 books a week or more. That’s not lazy parenting, IMO, it’s just needing some guidance. You can’t always vet every single book a child reads, and while I read adult books at age 9, that doesn’t mean I want my daughter to. Also, a lot of books shelved in the children’s section have surprisingly adult themes and language which I simply don’t think she’s ready to process or handle. Age banding isn’t censorship, unless certain aged children are *forbidden* to buy or read certain books by an outside source.
I actually don’t see anything wrong with indicative labels, as long as they’re not seen as prescriptive. I read well above my age – and I would choose books labelled 13+ when I was about 10. I would choose books labelled YA/15+ when I was 12/13. So, once I found that I needed to read a level above the “recommended” ones, the labelling was useful. My mother told our relatives that I read a level above my actual age, and they had no problem buying me books either.
I do think it’s helpful to indicate whether there is sexual explicitness or realistically-depicted violence in books, age-rating or no. Someone mentioned reading Jaws at a young age – I did too, and would have preferred not to, because of the strong association of sexuality with violence, and, frankly, the creepy sex that went on as well. It certainly squicked the hell out of me at age 11.
Getting back to the main point, age-range labelling, if it’s understood to be only indicative, is not a form of censorship – I was able to read all areas of the library when I was a kid. Sometimes a benchmark is handy, whether or not your actual peg is above or below the line. Having said all that stuff earlier about reading well above my age, it’s amusing just how much I frequent the YA section at age 39 – Tamora Pierce and Diana Wynne Jones FTW!