Concern over age bands for books

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Concern over age bands for books

By Pauline McLean

BBC Scotland arts correspondent

In the normally sedate gardens of the Edinburgh Book Festival, it is causing quite a furore.

From this autumn, a number of publishing houses will "age band" their children's books.

Each book will carry a specific marking indicating they are suitable for readers aged 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen.

Books will also carry a recommendation for where they should be placed in book shops or libraries.

Research within the book industry suggests people buying books for children would welcome the guidance.

Marketing people

But it is a scheme which has already enraged a number of writers, among them former children's laureate Michael Morpurgo.

"For me, the biggest issue is getting the book to the reader and how that's done I'm happy to leave to the marketing people unless they overstep the mark. In this case, I feel they really have overstepped the mark," he said before a sell-out event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

"If they had asked writers and children and parents they would have realised a lot of people are outraged at the prescriptive nature of this scheme.

"There's no such thing as an average seven-year-old. They could be four or 10, or like me, 65 - it's just nonsense."

Mr Morpurgo added: "If you say a book is for a seven-year-old, the nine-year-old is going to be trying to cover it up at the back of the class.

"There are so many more important issues they should concentrate on.

"The best way to get children to read is to write good books in the first place, make sure they're beautifully illustrated then have libraries open and teachers who love books and parents who love books. That's how we improve reading among children."

The scheme followed research by the Publishers' Association, which suggested standardising age recommendations might help boost reading.

"The interesting thing about children's books is that it's not the readers who are buying them - it is parents and grandparents and libraries and schools," said Sarah Grady, the children and education programme director for the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

"I think that's what the publishers were trying to address. As a reader, you drop a book if you don't like it so children will self censor, but it's knowing what to buy them in the first place."

Publishers themselves are divided on the subject.

JK Rowling's publisher Bloomsbury and about eight other major publishers have said they would not take part in the scheme.

The rest of the industry - including Puffin, Orion and MacMillan - are in favour of age banding unless individual authors object.

And writers have been vocal in their criticism - more than 750 authors have already signed an online petition set up by Philip Pullman, best selling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy.

They include JK Rowling, Anthony Horowitz, Terry Pratchett, Alan Garner and the four writers who have held the Children's Laureate title - Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen.

Story from BBC NEWS

Philip Pullman's statement/petition at www.notoagebanding.org:

Quotes from various signatories to the petition:

"When I was a child I read books far too old for me and sometimes far too young for me. Every reading child is different. Introduce them to the love of reading, show them the way to the library and let them get on with it. The space between the young readers eyeballs and the printed page is a holy place and officialdom should trample all over it at their peril."

Terry Pratchett (Author)

"Age banding is a practice that insults both book and reader, and attacks the root of literature."

Alan Garner (Author)

"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. Nor do I want to, because declaring that it's for any group in particular means excluding every other group, and I don't want to exclude anybody. Every reader is welcome, and I want my books to say so. Like some other writers, I avoid giving the age of my characters for that reason. I want every child to feel they can befriend them."

Philip Pullman, (author) in The Guardian

"On the age banding, from what I can figure out, the subtext of all this seems to be, in the UK more and more books are being sold through supermarkets. People in supermarkets don't have to know anything about what they're selling. They just need to know where to put it on the shelves. If publishers put colour-coded age bands on the books, indicating which books are for 7+ and which for 9+ and which for 11+, then supermarkets will order more books because they won't have to think about putting them out. And after all, the shelf-stackers don't need to know anything about dish-soap to sell that, so what makes books special?"

Neil Gaiman, in his Journal

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"Age banding is a practice that insults both book and reader, and attacks the root of literature."

Alan Garner (Author)

Alan Garner needs to be bitchslapped. Self important, pompous a s s.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I've not read Garner since I was a kid. His books were always classified as children's / YA stuff. He wrote The Weirdstone of Brisengamen.

I think the point is valid - though it illustrates an already existing problem of how marketing operations (publishing) interacts with artists and writers. You already have books classified in certain staid genres - its how Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are always found in book store childrens sections while other authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs aren't. Interestingly it has a pretty profound effect on sales - anything marketed to children generally makes a lot more money.

Age banding is suppose is a problem because it sounds suspiciously like the sort of content ratings you get on other media. As a kid would you be ID'd to buy a book? There are always kids who read above their age - enforcing what sort of content they read seems a bit counter-productive IMO.

[Peikko 1,575]

I can't see the point of it really. It just tells me that the parents dont' read enough to give their children guidance on what books to try. Read people, read and then you won't need stickers to tell you what books are appropriate! Honestly, this is stupidity incorporated.

Thanks for the link though 6, even if you did send my blood pressure up a few notches!

[caybee 21]

When I was in elementary school, the librarian would pull out a cart of suggested books for my age level when our class made our weekly visit. I always ended up in the stacks looking for something more interesting. First year of middle school, when I was 12, I was browsing through the dustier volumes in the school library and ended up borrowing this page-turner:

The Beyond Within

Nobody reacted at all, and I didn't turn out like weird or anything.

I don't have strong feelings about the banding. A kid who really likes to read is going to roll their eyes and read what they want, and usually at an appropriate level for them, regardless of how it's marked. For a kid who struggles with reading, I don't think a little help focusing in on something that may stimulate their interest without frustrating them is necessarily a bad thing, especially if their parents never developed their own good reading habits to pass along.

[DeadPoolX 9]

I can't see the point of it really. It just tells me that the parents dont' read enough to give their children guidance on what books to try. Read people, read and then you won't need stickers to tell you what books are appropriate! Honestly, this is stupidity incorporated.

Thanks for the link though 6, even if you did send my blood pressure up a few notches!

Of course parents don't read enough. How can they? They're too busy watching American Idol or some other moronic TV show.

[Peikko 1,575]

Well, I think you can do a bit of both (should you want to) but what I find odd is that the US has some of the most fantastic libraries you could ever hope to want and STILL people don't read! I can understand not reading as much if you can't afford books and there are no facilities but there are, loads of great ones!

Ok, I have now jumped off my soapbox. Thanks.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think because reading has taken a back seat to other media - DVDs, Videogames, the internet - all of which offer a sort of instant gratification. It might sound silly - but its *harder* to read than it is to play a videogame or watch a movie - esp as the sense of immersion in those kinds of experiences can be much greater - and perhaps most importantly require less of an investment in active imagination that you'd get from reading a book.

I've read elsewhere that a good many people who were into videogames in the 80's have a lot fonder memories of the games they played then (as a child) than in the sorts of cinematic experiences you have today. Essentially it was the same thing - you had atrocious graphics, a few bleeps and whistles for sound but your imagination filled in for the limitations of the technology.

With modern technology there's less of an need to do that.

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

Well, I think you can do a bit of both (should you want to) but what I find odd is that the US has some of the most fantastic libraries you could ever hope to want and STILL people don't read! I can understand not reading as much if you can't afford books and there are no facilities but there are, loads of great ones!

Ok, I have now jumped off my soapbox. Thanks.

[Peikko 1,575]

It is so true. The ones I have been in stock a huge assortment of books and for the most popular books they have several copies, I presume to accomodate book clubs and the like. They also have internet access and the one I use has a fabulous children's library with mini theater and they do book readings and story times for the kids. It's a great facility.