What the fuck?

[yendi]

Until I read Neil Gaiman's latest blog entry, I had no idea that British publishers were considering age-banding -- essentially putting age ratings on -- their books.

What a stupid, insulting, and potentially harmful fucking idea.

Neil is not a fan of it, either.

Nor is Darren Shan.

Nor is Philip Pullman.

Nor are hundreds of others.

And, of course, it's hard not to notice that Harper and Scholastic have US branches as well. Wonder how long until they decide to export this idea?

Comments

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Um, if you actually read Neil's entry, you'd see that Bloomsbury UK has said they absolutely won't be doing this, so I don't see why you would want to suggest that Bloomsbury US is in any danger of going in that direction.

For what it's worth, I don't see any real chance of such an idea getting any traction in US publishing. But I sent them my signature anyway.

[yendi]

You are correct - I read Neil's piece first, then conflated it with the other authors who were special exceptions for their publishers. Corrected in my post.

I do see it as very unlikely to hit the US as things currently stand. But if it's a hit in the UK, and just one idiot manages to make a GTA-style case out of his little kid reading, say, American Psycho, I could easily see the usual gang of idiots questioning why books aren't subject to the same guidelines as movies, video games, and even manga. Seeing it die in the UK would make me a little more comfortable.

[l-l-u-w-d.livejournal.com]

I am a voracious reader. Always have been. When I was a child, I very quickly went through the children's/juvenile's section of the library, and moved on to the adult section. Once I started exclusively checking out books from that section, the librarian tried to have my father restrict my library card to the children's/juvenile's section. He quickly put her in her place, and told her no way in hell was he going to do such a thing. That I was allowed to read anything that caught my fancy, and had been doing so for many years already. I can't imagine having my children's reading selection restricted by anyone other than myself, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. They want to read it, and are able to comprehend and retain what they read? By all means, they should. I can only see something like that squelching a child's growing love of reading. It's hard enough to get some kid's to read nowadays in the first place, all we need is something to further that difficulty.

[yendi]

Exactly!

[nishar.livejournal.com]

Yet another stupid idea.

[amokk]

Reading is hard! Besides, the UK really is a nanny state, so this isn't surprising to come out of there.

[fmh.livejournal.com]

Please direct me to the "This Is A Stupid Idea" petition so that I may sign.

[jafinnola.livejournal.com]

very dumb idea.
As a teacher, I have sometimes picked books for my students that have been below my students' grade level in school b/c their reading level warranted it. Putting a large age rating on a book would make life difficult for a teacher of students who do not read at grade level.

Now, there are publishers (can't recall which ones) that already list the reading levels on the back covers of their books over by the bar code - small, but still there.

[belgatherial.livejournal.com]

I saw that too. Bloody stupid idea. I dislike the notion of age-banding so veryvery much. There are many books I would potentially not have read as a child if that had existed then - and I would have been exceedingly poorer for it.

[rowancat.livejournal.com]

Oh Bleah. I Hate any attempts to restrict knowledge.

When i was a little kid (single digits age) i had read through all
the books i was interested in the "children's" section of the city
library.
I successfully petitioned the library to issue me an unrestricted
pass to the entire library, including the stacks.