In another post, I offered you my musings about sorting books into levels.  My contention was that we should not give books ability or age levels as that disadvantages certain types of reader and discourages almost all readers. Since I wrote that, I have been thinking about how teachers and parents can choose a book for a child when they have no expertise in children’s books. How can they gauge the appropriateness of a book?

It is obvious that when buying or borrowing books we need a place to start. Where many people start is the age range of the reader.  As a parent, grandparent, auntie or otherwise interested adult, who is not aware of the books out there, this is where you might think of starting. Books shops divide the children’s section into age groups for this very reason.  It’s quite useful too. It saves you doing a huge amount of research. There is some sense in it: children of five have wildly different reading levels, abilities and interests to young people of fourteen.

What I can’t get away from, however, is the judgemental nature of such divisions, useful and convenient as they are. Children might feel we are saying that they should not choose books from an age range lower than their own. How does that encourage reading? We don’t do this to adults.  We don’t put the ‘classics’ section in the ‘higher ability’ bracket, and the autobiography of the latest Love Island winner in the ‘lower ability’ section, even though it is undeniably true that it is much harder to read Wuthering Heights than it is a current ghost-written autobiography.  But we acknowledge that adults choose books for reasons other than their literacy level.  It may be true that some could not read the classic book and others would be bored reading the autobiography, but there will be swathes of people who enjoy reading both.

As I have said many times before. books are about more than levels. They are about the genre (horror, gothic, romance, thriller..), the subject matter (trains, relationships, the Tudors, the drugs problem in inner cities…), the style (literary, colloquial, formal, humorous…) as well as a host of other factors.  Might these things not be equally important ways of categorising books, both in libraries and book shops?  Could we not work out the reading level before buying – by reading a bit of it or looking something as simple as the size of the font – and have our choice driven by what the book is about?  After all, this is what inspires and motivates the reader, surely?  It is how we classify adult books.

Now we come to the main reason why I cannot just advocate scrapping age recommendation on books altogether. How can parents determine the appropriateness of a book to its reader?  As a school librarian I had to steer between giving my customers a wide, varied and interesting choice of books, styles, subjects and genres, and making sure little minds were not confused, horrified or offended by inappropriate ideas and language.  To be fair, most of the horror and offense was coming from parents rather than children, and most children who are truly too young for a book would not make it far enough in to discover the disturbing themes or language.  However, I do appreciate the point that, until a certain age, discussing abortion, suicide and alcoholism may not be appropriate. It may not be done at the level and depth appropriate to the child’s development, and many would suggest that children should not be reading about those kinds of things until they are in their mid-teens.

I have a pretty liberal view of what children should be allowed to read about.  After all, children suffer bereavement, feel themselves to be outsiders because of race or gender, endure domestic abuse and see the effects of drug and alcohol abuse in their own lives in the real world. If these issues are discussed thoughtfully and in a balanced and nuanced way, then they should do more good than harm. However, I do understand that it is not my place to make the decision for parents as to what it is good for their child to read. That being the case, there must be a way for parents, and the other adults who are responsible for bringing up children, to find out if the book has the ‘right’ level of subject matter for their age. One quick and easy way to do this is to put an age on a book and be quite cautious about what that age range can tolerate as regards the intricacies of life.

The ideal would be that the expert in the library or bookshop could give you the information about the book you are thinking of borrowing or buying for your child, or give the information directly to the child. And, the parent is free, if they are concerned enough, to read the book too and work through any issues with the child as they go. The trouble is that quite often those experts are not available.  In schools, often librarians have been replaced by over-worked English teachers or Teaching Assistants; in many public libraries there are volunteers rather than trained staff. Often books are sold in places like supermarkets where there are no staff on hand at all. Another problem, of course, is that what a child thinks they are capable of reading and coping with may differ widely from what their parent thinks. I am very far from thinking that children know what is best for them, but I have seen many instances of children being ‘protected’ from issues that they would be better knowing about.  There are certainly instances of schools dropping the study of the holocaust in Year 7 or 8 because of parental complaints.  Our common humanity (and what happens when we forget it) is something I think we should all learn about. But that is just my opinion.

And that is the point. We are all entitled to our opinion, and so the consumer and the reader need to have all the information to enable them to make a choice based on their own opinion. In conclusion, without taking away the very liberty of choice that I want to create, I cannot get rid of putting ages on books. Though providing expertise in assisting choice is always the best way, whether in providing trained librarians or trained booksellers.

The fact that there are fewer and fewer of these is more damaging than we can yet realise. The proliferation of ‘libraries’, or rather, collections of books, with no expert management, promotion or advice is a rant for another day.