To think books should have age certificates

[mrswhiskerson]

There is a debate going on at the minute about certifying music videos which I do agree with , I love music videos and some of them can be real works of art but I do not want my ds watching close ups of rihannas bum boobs or crotch. I also shouldn't have to not be able to watch the music channel while I am doing my ironing for fear of ds watching three am a
half minutes of soft porn.

What has surprised me though is no one ever mentions books. I have been an avid reader since childhood and some of the things I read were to old for me a notable book was American psycho which I read at fifteen after the film came out , it really disturbed me . Isn't the imagination worse than what you see? There is nothing in place to stop young people buying horrific books from waterstones and the like and these books could have a negative effect.

My point is that not all parents have the time or inclination to read through a whole book and covers can be very decieving. A lot of chicklit books have pink or white covers and sparkly writing. A pink book with Glamour! in white sparkly letters does not sound like a book you would be wary of your teenager reading but you would think twice about letting them read it if it has This book contains themes of sexual violence , on the back

lolarennt that is a very valid point and admittedly not one i had thought of. I just wondered if people felt the same about books as they do computer games and what there kids watch on tv.

Maybe its because when you think of a teen reading you imagine a slightly more mature child then when you think of a teen boy playing violent video games? I mean it doesn't actually mean they are any more emotionally mature or aware enough that they should be exposed to violence, but I think i might be a natural assumption.

I completely agree with what you say and I think that is why people have been so quick to flame me , They possibly think I am in favour of not allowing children to read and because reading is considered educational and good , but with a lot of books that is not the case.

I think a guideline of the content would be a good idea for buying books.

But in reality I think it would be difficult for parents to stop children reading what they want to read. I remember James Herbert's The Fog and The Rats being passed around at age 11/12. I'm fairly certain my parents would have been horrified it they knew I was reading them.

No. The only exceptions should be for misery lit, which should be on it's own in a locked room with a warning sign saying

"only come in here if you are a voyeuristic twat"

Hmm, I'm with the OP actually, I was a hugely precocious reader and it meant that I was reading books with sex in them by 11/12, and I don't mean Forever I mean mysogynistic crap like Harold Robbins. It's really not a good way to be introduced to the sexual world.

I can't remember the name of the book, but when I was 10 we went on holiday to France and my mum's boyfriend let me read the book he'd brought, and there was a scene - I think it must have been a war book, with atrocity scenes, maybe it was even Shogun? - with a young girl about my age found naked and hanging from a tree and clearly raped, and that image has never left me. Should my Mum have read it first? Possibly, but it's a hell of a time suck, isn't it? For children's films I have websites booked that give a really decent exposition of the plot and any possible scary/distressing bits, which I'll look at before showing DD any of those films, but to ask a parent to read an entire novel before letting a child read it is a bit much.

My Dad let me watch unsuitable films too early, and those images have stayed with me as well. I don't see the distinction really.

I'm all for extending a child's education and challenging their reading, of course. But just as a film rating will specify the issues (I won't hire films that have a "strong violence" sticker on them even now), why can't adult books say "violent sexual content", eg?

I don't think parents have to read the whole thing though. You can get a pretty good idea of what you're going to find from the flap copy or the Amazon reviews. Either parents are going to be responsible, and keep an eye on what their children read, or they're not, and the age stickers won't do anything anyway; in fact, you're going to get children actively seeking out these books and having a good flick through looking for the "rude" bits.

I would have no problem with my 11/12 year old reading adult books, but I'm not going to encourage trash, which is where the majority of graphic sex and violence is, and which don't really extend children's literacy anyway, because they're written to appeal to a low adult literacy level.

eg. No Martina Cole, no misery lit, no Lee Child etc etc

So basically what I'm saying is, if YA is too easy/unappealing, he can crack on with 'Catcher in the Rye' and get back to me

Nope, books shouldn't have age certification. Impossible to enforce, and I would say wrong. There are bright kids out there who learn a lot of what they know, from books. I remember very clearly reading so many books as a child that had rather dubious content, and a lot of them were classics of literature. It teaches you a lot about the world.

I'd much rather children weren't censored when it comes to books, since for many it is the only way they have access to a) the facts of life, b) the experiences and thoughts of so many other people throughout history, and the world. Mrswhiskerson that's your opinion coloured by your experience. What you think unsuitable might not be for another person. Because you were damaged by a book, doesn't mean that anyone else was.

Shogun was an ace book. I read King Rat when I was 11 and although in some ways it was shocking as a child, it also taught me so much. Same with The Gulag Archipelago which I was given by an English teacher. Or the copy of the Iliad with all the attendant violence. All three are books that under your definition wouldn't be available or accessible to children, and yet despite their content are vital, interesting and thought provoking

Oh and as an addendum, my voracious reading inevitably led me to books that were not suitable of course for my age, but often in the strangest places and for the strangest reasons. I remember crying my eyes out when I was ten, over The Iron Dragon's Daughter which took my childhood notions of elves (formed by Lord of the Rings) and twisted them. Doesn't mean the book was wrong, means that it found a particular bit of my pysche that found it disturbing. Doesn't mean that ten year olds should be banned from reading it.

Oh and as another poster said, reading age has a lot to do with it. I was reading Austen and various other 'grown up' authors by the time I was six or seven. Sending me back to Biff and Chip, or to Jacqueline Wilson would've been like locking my mind in a very small room. A child who is old enough to comprehend adult language, is old enough to attempt to comprehend the adult world in a safe way- through the pages of a book

Wouldn't it make English teaching rather difficult? Dd in Yr 6 was reading Macbeth in class- a book with several murders, lots of sexual innuendo, and imagery of a mother dashing out the brains of her breastfeeding baby.

If parents are concerned, I think the best thing they can do is:

provide plenty of good literature at a level that will stimulate their children

not keep the worst kind of trash in the house at all; if it's not in your room they won't find it there

The thing I found most disturbing as a child was a child's history of Ancient Egypt. The kind of thing that is proudly on show in reception classrooms. It had mummies in it. I had sleep problems for months afterwards.

I'm with the YABU side too. Yes, reading is really disturbing, and it can be for adults too (Primo Levi, and even Maus - on particular scene, and I was probably over 20 when I first read it, but I can't say I wish I'd never read them), but age banding and film rating are usually badly done and difficult to defend. I know someone who is a children's author and her editor made her cut a battle scene where there were a few graphic descriptions, but she then got a letter from a child who had cried all night because the main character and his mother have a flaming row. As a child I was traumatised by the ABC test card, which showed a child climbing a barbed-wire fence - it looked as though the wire went through his body. There is no easy way to know what will leave a permanent mark on anyone, child or adult.

That said, Cory is also right. If you really disapprove, don't have it in the house.

I do also think there's a difference to a child being exposed to the concept of (e.g) rape via Tess of the D'Urbervilles vs. American Psycho

However, it would be difficult for a censor to make that differential.

As you grow up disturbing info/images come from all sorts of sources . Why pick on books? My dc self-censor, if something is disturbing/too hard, they put it down and say they'll read it when they're older. Or if they have found something weird/disturbing, we talk about it.

I am currently in therapy* because of this. It was a very dark book

www.amazon.co.uk/Pookie-Ivy-Wallace/dp/0001983776

*slight exaggeration

my 13 year old want to read Maus so i have just ordered it for him.
It might not be traditional early teen reading but i know my son better than anyone else and he is quite capable of handling it.

Cantspel- is that the holocaust one?

Yes. It is a graphic novel by by Art Spiegelman

I remember a school reading book when I was about 7 called 'ghosts and other mysteries' with stories and actual photos of 'ghosts' and ghouls which haunted my night-times until I was well into my teens. It absolutely terrified me and this was on the curriculum!
There's no saying what reading material is going to affect children and I agree with other posters that most of what they read will go over their heads if they dont understand it.

But can't these arguments (parents should check content, restricting will just make children seek them out, if you disapprove don't have them in the house, censors can't distinguish between quality and trash) all be applied to films and video games?

Do we also think these shouldn't carry restricted age labels?

No, because films are passive and reading is active.

A reader is much more able to see where things are going and stop reading than a film watcher, especially as reading is usually a solitary activity, whereas film watching is often a social one, so has the added complications of peer pressure or a child accidentally catching sight of a film that a parent is watching.

That said, I think there is enough non-disturbing quality literature out there for any child, however voracious a reader, not to be limited by not touching on some of the more graphic stuff.

Tortoiseonthehalfshell not every parent sticks to the age restrictions on video games and films either. I know i dont abut probably 90% of MN would disagree with some of the games i let my teens play but in real life most of the parents i know have made the same choices.

I'll come and agree with you then, sieglinde: I think film rating is difficult enough to understand. I always go by my own judgment rather than the censor. For one thing, I find they are far more prudish than I am, but fairly lax about violence.

And my ds is exactly like the little boy you describe: he can cope with any number of nasty monsters and ripping-aparts, but will be terribly disturbed by people being unkind to each other in a realistic setting.