Can we please put suitable age guidance on books as we do films?

[KennDodd]

Any publishers reading this?

It would be really helpful when choosing books for children/teens. It would also work well on adult books so we know which books have unsuitable themes or passages. Anybody think this might we worth a petition or lobbying publishers about? Although I suppose in the internet age you could say what they read is the least of our concerns.

I don't like it. Age labels can really be off putting for readers - esp if they are reading at a level considered lower than the norm. You can easily Google suitability - or ask a friendly librarian or bookseller!

It's always been discussed in children's publishing. But the dominant theory is that it will put off children - the target readers - even if it's helpful for parents - the target buyers.

If you read below the 'reccommended age' - if you're still enjoying a book aimed at 7 year olds when you're 9, then that's going to stop children reading.

Similarly, if you're reading well above your 'age' and can cope with longer books, more complicated language and tougher themes then why should anyone restrict you?

Use physical bookshops. They band by age and suitability (5-8, 9-12, teen, YA). Talk to the booksellers - they are a wealth of knowledge.

Here you go, for the arguments against:

www.notoagebanding.org/

yy to above. Anything that puts off reluctant kids or kids with literacy issues is a big no no for me. Having said that my 9 year old was reading Ripley's Believe It or Not annual the other night. I thought it was full of random but fun facts. He comes down stairs all pale faced and tells me he's just read about a cafe in Nigeria that had been serving human flesh and was freaked out! Poor thing - so maybe a wee parental warning for graphic content rather than an age rating. Let's face it something that says "Parental Advisory" will have the opposite effect of an age rating...all the kids will want to read it!

Ok, point taken. I have a (just) thirteen year old who's an avid reader, she's mostly into adult books now and a struggle to know if a book is suitable or not.

I think reading something you don’t understand is different from seeing it on screen. I read a fair few ‘adult’ books as a child/young teen and the things I didn’t understand completely passed me by (specifically remember reading the horse whisperer when I was fairly young and didn’t have a clue what was going on in the sex scenes), whereas I also watched 18 rated horror films at a few years younger than 18, and still find horror films shit scary as an adult and don’t watch them!

Yes I found and read my mum's copy of Flowers in the Attic when I was about 10 and loved it. I bought the follow ups in Woolies with my pocket money. Wildly inappropriate. But I didn't really GET the whole incest thing!

I would simply accept that she's going to read stuff with adult themes. I was reading Stephen King and James Herbert throughout my teens.

But you could also look on Commonsense Media, though bear in mind it's American and sometimes more prudey than we might be in the UK.

Commonsense Media I thought they just covered films?

No, books as well.

At 13 I was reading anything that took my fancy. The idea of limiting books according to a committee's idea of age-appropriate makes me feel really uncomfortable.

I read all sorts of dreadfully unsuitable stuff as a youngster. All my dad's Tom Sharpe books, for instance. Joseph Wambaugh's The Choirboys. Funny, really, as my mum was so obsessed with not letting us watch any TV or films that might have been even slightly inappropriate- this is the woman who banned Gladiators for 'promoting violence' and stopped me going on holiday to Switzerland aged 13 for renting a 15 certificate film with a friend!

In lots of ways books are only as scary as the limits of your imagination and knowledge, I read loads of 'unsuitable' books as a young teen and the worst of them went over my head tbh, I'd find them more disturbing now that I know how awful people and situations can be iykwim

But books should ideally be for everyone irregardless.
When I was little I often pored over books about history science and geography. I also read ghost stories from time to time. I was interested in books on travel and books on animals. Occasionally I studied a map of the world and maps of England too. And textbooks were also engaging. Biographies sometimes appealed to me too.
Why does it even matter? It’s not your choice to make.

Maybe they should have sex, language, violence, 15 / 18 type warnings rather than age recommendations.

I totally get that 9yos don't want to be reading books recommended for 7yos. And not all 7yos will be have same reading ability.

As pp have said, age guidelines are a really bad idea and do put people off - everyone learns reading at a different pace and any certification system would damage people's reading development.

It would be reasonable to have a single standard content information box which all publishers use to highlight whether the book contains themes that might be concerning (horror, extreme violence, decriptions of torture or rape, etc) - which adults might be just as likely to find helpful.

I was an avid reader as a child and no one supervising my book choices. I had books out of the library containing themes like sex, torture and rape from the age of 10 or so (I have a particular memory of being confused by rape as a concept because as far as I knew people only ever wanted to have sex if they loved each other very much and wanted to make a baby). That was traumatising and I agree with you that there should be some kind of standard and easily recognisable warning. It just shouldn't use age numbers.

I read The Cement Garden at 13. I think as a parent you need to be aware and willing to answer any questions as best as you can about your child's books

I made a choice not to actively censor books - but also taught my child to put anything down when she isn't comfortable with it.

To be honest, as she only chooses from children's and young adult there hasn't been too much that is inappropriate anyway. If there is, then it flies over her head.

Reading a range of books is massively important, I think, and I'd hate to be the one to stop her doing that.

Previous generations didn't have to think like this. Children went to the library and read the children's books until they decided to stretch themselves usually somewhere between 8 and 12.there were no books marketed at young adults. I worked my way through from Ant and Bee to Moomins , Famous Five, Edith Nesbit ,laura Ingalls Wilder, The Swish of the Curtain and on to Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, The Day of the Triffids, Cranford,Titus Groan, Lord Peter Wimsey, To Kill a Mockingbird and Jilly
Cooper ...
If I chose a book I didn't understand , I would abandon it. Scenes that as an adult I view as very sexual , I sort of glossed over. In other words I only took in what I truly understood.
The only external input I had regarding choices were in the nature of recommendations. I think that this was the usual pattern for kids who enjoyed reading. It isn't stressful or shocking to read things you don't understand. It's not to say that I couldn't be upset by things I read but I found sad films where I had less control of. The pace etc much more upsetting eg Ring of Bright Water, Old Yeller, Black Beauty etc.

I don't have a teenage kid but at 13 I read all the agatha Christie books. I hate to say it but I do performances and workshops with teenagers and by 12 there isn't much they haven't found a way to google. Placing adult themes in the context of fiction is probably much healthier than friends stumbling on websites in secret. If you read the books too - and talk about what happens in them you can guide them through tricky ideas. I would AVOID stephen King tho, if you ever want to get them to sleep again!

"Previous generations didn't have to think like this."

No, because IME childrens' books from the 1970s and earlier really often had age guidance on them! Mostly in the 'likely to be enjoyed by boys and girls aged 10 and over' style, so not circumscribing too much, but giving some kind of baseline guidance. (Or within a wider description 'ideal for children aged 7 and up who love adventure stories / prefer a gentle read / enjoy reading about nature'.) Most of the books from my childhood that are still kicking around have some kind of age range or lower age mentioned in the blurb.