Because all five year olds are the same

[faustus]

Darren Shan says no to age banding.

”Age branding” is an idea that has been knocked around for many years in children’s books — many people want to have an industry-wide age branding tag slapped on every children’s book published in the UK. It would be a bit like a cinema certificate (although far more limiting — in cinema we have U, 12, 15, but on books we would clinically (dare I add cynically) sub-divide our youth up into 5+, 7+, 9+ brackets). As a children’s author, I’ve always been firmly opposed to this — I don’t think it’s necessary; I think it treats the public like morons; and I also think it’s a move towards censorship, giving publishers and booksellers more power than I think it’s healthy for them to have. I think the reading of a book is a very personal experience, and it should be the right of every reader (or every reader’s parent or teacher or librarian) to choose a book that they believe is suitable for them on an individual level.

Several weeks ago, I heard from my publisher that “the industry” had decided to implement age branding, because someone did a survey which stated it would be good for the business, and that authors would sell more books because of it. I immediately objected and said I didn’t want any age branding on my books. I was going to make my objections public at the time, but kept quiet because I was hoping that if enough writers objected to their publishers, that the idea would be dropped like the stupid, harmful, insulting hot potato that it is. (I’m still stunned by the fact that no writers were included in the decision-making process!!!)

So does Philip Pullman:

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.

Meg Rosoff disagrees with the stance:

I'm constantly snatching my books out of the hands of precocious ten-year-olds who are simply too young to read them, despite parents insisting that dear Octavia has a reading age of 28. I remember trying to read In Cold Blood at the age of twelve, and realising that just because you can read book doesn't mean you should.

Comments

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

So...Meg was able to realise a book was too old for her, but no other child could do that? What is she, SuperReader?

Gah.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Persoomably all other children would read on to the end, so she's a less good reader than what they are.

(Another reaction might be to say "my kids would be able to cope, but it's the working class/poor/adopted by gays and lesbians/sink estate kids I feel sorry for.")

I'm pretty sure there are books I read too soon and films I watched too some. No damage. (I suspect there are books that are too late to read - On the RoadCatcher in the Rye

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

I disliked "On the Road" so much that I suspect there's a time and a gender for it ;).

When I was a kid, my dad always joined the local film club, and we got to see lots of films "too early". Hardly mattered. Still a big film-lover.

Sometimes I wish we'd teach kids to read. Not just the mechanics of it, but how to deal with words you don't know, and so on. That's a skill I've had since I was seven, but I keep meeting adult 'readers' who don't seem to have it at all. Sad.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Yes, a boys book for a boys club (although Carolyn Cassady's takes on it are interesting, and er, Joyce Johnson's).

I know precisely when the students stop reading Marx: the sixth word of the extract. "The ruling ideas of each epoch..."

Look it up. Google it. Good grief.

In one seminar the students asked me about a word (progress!) in a colleague's hand out for her lecture: "fairy tale is etiolated myth".

Ahem. Mind goes blank.

I point out they've had the hand out for almost a week, in which time they've had every opportunity to look it up and, in fact, if I simply told them what it meant, I'd be removing a useful learning opportunity for them. Then I suck out the classroom to look it up myself.

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

hehehe

This 1491 book I'm reading has thrown at least two new words at me. Of course, I'm reading it upstairs and the dictionary's downstairs, and by the time I'm downstairs, 1491's still upstairs, and I can't remember what the words were anyway.

Hmm. I have an etiolated planet in my kitchen. Poor thing.

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

Planet???

I mean plant. It's not remotely wandersome.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I was never wowed by Rossof. Now I know why. The whole damn point is that kids shoudl *learn* to put down a book they aren't ready for. It's part of the process.

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder how long it'll take these kids to become adults once they get away from the parents who are determined to infantilise them. I suspect they won't manage it at all.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

We don't want them to grow up - because that would mean we're old (people I went to school have been grandparents for half a decade already when I'm adjusting to being old enough to being a parent to my students).


Adults cling onto to the childish the children probably want to lose.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

The fear maybe that they put it down and never read again? "The apple uneaten/In the palm".

But if they fail anyway then they will surely pick up a book aimed at those three years younger than them.

Failure is character-building, of course. You should see the size of my character.