The Times reports that British publishers are going to start putting age guides on children’s books. Sigh. Librarians have a love-hate relationship with age guidelines already. Yes, they make it easier for patrons to find appropriate films, but they are also so very arbitrary and often strange. Video games especially are oddly rated and because the ratings range so widely from one title to the next they are less than helpful.
I worry that book ratings will be even more difficult to pinpoint. The age range for books has very little to do with reading level, unless you are looking at the levels of beginning readers and any person who has tried to use numerical levels from one series to the next knows that there is no standard there either. But what do they do with teen novels purposely written at lower reading levels. There will be teen content but their ratings seem to have more to do with reading level than content, making it a completely different type of rating than anything else parents have dealt with.
How about you? Do you see book ratings as a positive move?
Waking Brain Cells 
Each and every reader reads differently. Different books are appropriate for different people, but that’s not only or solely based on age, but on intelligence, interest, and so much more. I posted about this at length at the start of the year.
http://slayground.livejournal.com/158677.html
LikeLike
Parents will love it, of course, even if the ages end up wrong. Age guides are tricky, especially since different publishers may decide to put the same book under different age groups. Just reading book reviews, I’ll often find one book for ages 9-12 and then a different review source will say ages 12-14. Who do I believe? Sometimes I look at the cover first to see who they marketed it for (which I am sure will also influence the ages put on the book. If the publisher thinks YA sells more, they might try push the ages “up” just for marketing). Myself and the YA librarian often trade books between our sections after reading them because they aren’t appropriate…and we were depending on the reviews to give us direction!
So is it a good idea? Not really. Is it going to happen anyway? Yep. That’s why you need good librarians or booksellers who have actually read the books to properly guide the right kid to the right book.
LikeLike