Age banding for books - my view

A colleague sent me an email with a link to an article about the G.P. Taylor v Patrick Ness debate and said "you know about these things, what do you think?".  I started writing a response and it turned into a bit of an essay, so she suggested blogging it!
It is a thorny issue as I think parents do need some kind of guidance as to what their children are reading - they might not have time to read it themselves and there might not be an expert on hand to say 'I think your son/daughter is a bit young for that'.  Kids are quite self-censoring though - they'll stop reading a book if they aren't enjoying the storyline and often say that they think a book is not suitable for their younger sibling.  The debate started this time because of the assertion that YA books are becoming 'darker', but Grimms' Tales were pretty dark, and what about Goosebumps and Point Horror from 20 years ago?  Some pretty nasty things happen in Harry Potter too...as Patrick Ness said, in real life children have to deal with bad stuff and so like to read about people experiencing similar or worse events.  Who's to say that a 16 year old is more able to cope with reading about suicide or rape or bereavement than a 14 year old, or even a 12 year old, when any one of them could have experienced suicidal thoughts.  Never mind that they will have watched people coping with these issues on Eastenders anyway!

An awful lot of the manga sold in western countries has age bands - off the top of my head, it is A (all), T (early teen) , T+ (older teen), 16 & 18+ - determined for the American market who are really prudish so I wouldn't mind any of the kids in my library reading most T+.  This is because they're all sold in a similar format and just looking at the cover won't tell you whether there might be some hardcore p*rn or extreme violence in there!  It hasn't made a difference to their popularity, as with age banding for films, so maybe doing the same for full text YA books would not cause a problem.  It might even increase the kudos of an author, to have their book rated as 15+.

I think age banding is unfeasible.  Firstly, who would do it and secondly what would the reasoning be?  Would it be like films and done by committee (there are a lot more books published than films made), or the publishers, or the authors?  Would a book that involves the massacre of demons have the same ranking as one that involves descriptions of the Holocaust?  Would one that deals with the aftermath of a rape have the same rating as one with a gratuitous sex scene?  It is the way that the issues are handled that matters, and that is an issue for marketers/publicists/booksellers/librarians - to ensure that the right messages get through to the right people.  For age banding to work, every book would have to have it - adult as well as YA or childrens'.  Otherwise 15 year olds would be held back from reading something from the adult section of the bookshop 'just in case'.

There would also have to be some way of making it clear that the rating is simply about the suitability of the story rather than the difficulty of the language.  Emotional maturity, reading age, and physical age do not necessarily correlate!  A child could pick up a book deemed to be suitable for their age group and either struggle terribly because it is too difficult for them or be bored because it is too 'easy'.  I can also see a number of teens I know refusing to read something because it has '12' on it but they're 14.  At school we buy in a system called Accelerated Reader that levels books based on language content and provides quizzes for pupils to take to demonstrate that they have understood the book.  These levels correlate to reading ages, and are actually quite useful as long as you bear in mind that they don't make a judgement on the events in the story.  For example, the House of Night series is easier to read than the Harry Potter novels but are for a more mature age group (the opening chapter includes a description of a blowjob).  The only indicator of age-appropriateness is 'LY', 'MY' or 'UY' on their labels - lower, middle or upper year.  Not enough books are quizzed and the system is too expensive, but it is a useful tool for those that don't have a strong knowledge of children's literature.

Hot Key Books are a new publishing company that have what I think is a brilliant alternative - the Hot Key Ring - in which they give an idea of what kind of issues are in that book without prescribing who it might be suitable for.  No hint of reading level or age appropriateness, but a good indicator of content that wouldn't be off-putting for the reader or parent.
I have seen a number of YA books with 'parental guidance' or 'warning: explicit content' signs on their covers - it just makes you want to read it more ;-)

#cpd23 Things 8 & 9

Thing 8 and 9 are all about organising yourself, first up is Google Calendar.  I already have a google account and so have the calendar, but I use the one on my Blackberry instead.  Maybe when I get a new phone next year and it isn't compatible with that I will change my mind and use the google one instead but for now I'm content not to change.  There's no one I need to share it with, my life does not have that many demands!

Thing 9 is Evernote - a really great looking tool for keeping track of things of note online or on your desktop. For it to be useful I think you need to spend a bit of time practicing and creating a collection of notes on there to get it going so I think I'll make that a project for a day in the Summer Holidays (4 weeks and counting!).

#cpd23 Things 5, 6 & 7!

So I've got miles behind on #cpd23 and we're only 1/4 of the way through!  The main reason is that I read Thing 5: Reflective Practice and thought 'I really need to dedicate a bit of time to that' but then never found the time!  I really do want to get into reflective practice, not least because it is an important tool in writing a Chartership portfolio (I've found a mentor so things are beginning!), but I don't want my lack of time lately to make me give up on cpd23 entirely so I've decided to skip the Thing for later.

Thing 6: Online networks
I'm not very good at networking, I find talking to people difficult unless I already know them (what a conundrum) and am especially quiet in large crowds.  That was why online networking appealed so much - hiding behind a screen.  In fact, at last weekend's Lighting the Future conference I was far more comfortable talking to people because, as well as a few I've met before, there were many I've corresponded with (my mum won't let me say 'talked to') online and I enjoyed seeing them in 'real life'.  Saying that though, I think there are far too many available so I'm very select about what I keep up with.

I created a LinkedIn account a long time ago because a friend invited me, but it didn't take me long to decide it wasn't going to have a big impact on my life and I couldn't be bothered maintaining the account.  In fact I made the decision so permanent that I deleted the account and have been deleting invites from other people ever since.  Every now and again I wonder whether to start it up again but haven't been persuaded.  I agree with the quote from Reid Hoffman at the end of the Thing 6 post on the cpd23 blog "Facebook is the backyard BBQ; LinkedIn is the office" and this is partly why I don't use it - I don't think LinkedIn will make a massive difference to my career.

I love Facebook.  I don't use any applications other than GoodReads and I keep my friend list down to 101 people because the number pleases me <ahem> so I only have people that I am really interested in in 'real' life.  I do 'like' a lot of library, YA lit, kid lit and literacy related things and regularly look at my newsfeed and update my status.  I keep it entirely personal though, only occasionally sharing the professional things that I think are important for non-librarians as well.
I'm not involved in LISNPN or LAT and although I have logged into the CILIP website and created a profile I don't really use the communities.  I am however on the School Librarian Network (SLN) which is a Yahoo group that I get e-mail digests from and read the posts that interest me and occasional contribute to.  I signed up to Google+ and then never looked at it again, and I don't have a pintrest account but I have looked at a few walls and really like the idea of quickly sharing such a variety of sources of entertainment and information.  GoodReads counts as another community as you have 'friends' and can nosy in one another's 'bookshelves' for inspiration.  I only really use it to record what I'm reading and a brief starred rating but occasionally read a blog post of an author or have a look at what's going on in a group.
Thing 7: real-life Networks
So you might already know, because I have mentioned a few times not least in this post about our conference, that I am a member of CILIP YLG, CILIP SLG and the SLA.  I am particularly interested in the YLG, being a member of the London Committee, because I love that it concentrates on enthusing children and young people to read for pleasure.  I think my involvement has made a massive difference in my career, and life in general.  Although it hasn't got me a well paid job (one day maybe) it has helped shape the kind of Librarian I am and given me confidence in my abilities and methods, yay!  It has found me colleagues that understand what I do all day, which teachers often don't, and friends that share common interests.  I can't recommend joining a committee enough.  Would I consider joining another network?  I am thinking about joining the CILIP CDG - Career Development Group - for the Chartership process, but other than that I can't say I can think of one that is worth dedicating precious time to...saying that, I keep meaning to contact the Guides association to volunteer as a Guider, that counts right!

Lighting the Future

The 2012 Joint YLG, SLG and SLA Conference

For those of you not in the know, this weekend was the joint conference of three bodies that care greatly about children and reading:

CILIP Youth Libraries Group

CILIP School Libraries Group

School Library Association

I am a member of all three, and on the London Committee of the YLG.  Each group usually holds their own annual conference, but for the first time since 2000 they decided to join forces for a mega conference and came up with a really packed programme.  Inspirational speakers from all sides of youth librarianship and literacy gave ringing war cries to promote our services 'outisde the echo chamber' and 'shout about' school libraries.  Authors, poets and storytellers entertained us with their creative minds and made clear their support for what we do (they judged their audience well for roaring rounds of applause!).  Enthusiastic publishers loaded us down with tonnes of proof copies and promotional materials for their Carnegie and Greenaway hopefuls of the future...it was non-stop, from checking in at noon on Friday to leaving at 2.30pm today.  I don't want to regurgitate everything I heard so if you're interested in detail it is worth searching #LTF12 on twitter or looking at the tweets collated by John Iona, taking out some of the more irreverent observations, on storify.  I just thought I'd share a few of my highlights:

I really enjoyed the panel discussion about reading and technology on Friday afternoon with three very eloquent and knowledgeable panelists.  Bev Humphrey talked about using new technologies to support literacy while Jonathan Douglas made the point that the Reading Agency's research into reading habits have shown a decline in reading in all formats, but that children are accessing story in new ways that still promote language and creativity.  Dave Coplin, from Microsoft, won the crowd over talking about how what he does should support what we do and that, if anything, the existence of the Internet makes a Librarian more important for curating and finding knowledge.  He said he doesn't see the point in teaching how to use particular software, but teaching children critical thinking and research skills is vital.

Storytelling over dinner capped off the evening wonderfully, I enjoyed listening to John Agard so much that I had to rush to the bookshop to buy a book of his poetry for him to sign.

Friday's haul of books, bags, posters,
mug, postcards and bookmarks

Saturday's intense but rousing panel discussion around 'Reading in the political spotlight' with a stellar panel was excellent.  My favourite quotes were from Aidan Chambers, who made it clear that he disagreed with government interference in the work of specialists, and that we must not confuse the profession of teacher with the act of teaching because as Librarians we can teach more!  Simon Mayo chaired the panel and made some great points himself about the tangible difference between a school which holds it's library at it's heart and one that doesn't have one.  Again, the after dinner entertainment was fantastic, with Morris Gleitzman keeping the room silent for an hour with his fascinating life story.

Saturday's many books...

Kevin Crossley-Holland, in his role as President of the SLA, gave a wonderful closing speech on Sunday, telling us he firmly believes that a well stocked, well-funded library should be the cornerstone of every school in the country and he is prepared to work hard for us during his presidency.

All of the whole delegate sessions were fantastic but, to be honest, I was disappointed by the workshops I was allocated. I decided not to tell you which ones I went to because others might have found them useful but I found that they were on matters that I have personally considered a lot already and, one in particular, I felt I could have presented a better session about myself! They hadn't been my first choices so hopefully most people didn't feel the same way as me.

The exhibition of publishers and library suppliers was great fun. Now that I've been on the London Committee for a few years I've talked to a number of the publicists and it was nice to be recognised and have books pushed into my hands almost immediately. Meeting up with Librarians I know well or only see at events, or even that I'd not met in person but have tweeted regularly, was excellent and I left with an awful lot to carry home!

Really impressed with Hot Key Books
efforts to save the environment by giving
memory sticks with their proofs on!

Of all the books I picked up I think the 3 I'm most excited about the Darren Shan, Elen Caldecott, and Sally Gardner.  I also picked up a nice little heap of non-fiction for school.

#cpd23 Thing 4

Current awareness - Twitter, RSS feed and Storify
In this Thing we'll explore a few tools that  will help you to keep up-to-date and aware of goings on in the library and  information world, and make it easy to share news and stories with others
So as you're probably aware I am already on Twitter, have been for about 4 years, and I love it.  I follow authors, publishers, librarians and book bloggers.  Although I follow about 450 people, I have a locked 'quick check' list of about 100 that I look at regularly as I don't find the time to keep up with the whole stream!  I've never joined in with a twitter chat, keep meaning to but am never at a computer at the right time, but I do use #hashtags quite often.

iGoogle with Google Reader RSS has been my homepage on my laptop for quite some time - again, I follow a number of book bloggers through there, and a few librarians mostly found through cpd23 lists.  There are maybe 100 blogs I follow so I just look at the summaries and click further to read more if something catches my eye, as again I wouldn't have time to keep up otherwise.  Blog post headings are very important!

Storify is the one thing I've come across but not tried - I really like the idea so have now created my own one about the CILIP Carnegie Kate Greenaway medals.  Mind you, I signed in with twitter and then fell at the first hurdle - it refuses to 'pin' the storify bookmarklet to my bookmarks :-( I carried on anyway, searching in twitter for #ckg2012, and I embedded the url of the CKG website as well as a couple of YouTube videos of book trailers.

I had a quick glance at other cpd23ers efforts on storify but personally I think the most useful of the three is twitter.  You can skim through 140 character notes and click 'favourite' on items to look at more closely later.  People include links to really useful things from all sorts of sources, including blog posts meaning that an RSS feed becomes less important in making you aware of what is new.  It can be accessed from all sorts of mobile devices and so from anywhere, and again if you see a link you can't follow from your phone then you can just 'favourite' it to look at when you reach a PC.  You do have to use it regularly to make it worth having, I probably look 3 or 4 times a day but tweet less often than that.  To grow your follower base you need to tweet though!  I tweet mini-reviews of what I've read as well as links to things I find interesting in the library/book world.

Greenaway shadowing again...

Continuing shadowing the CILIP Greenaway award with a group of Year 7s. Have a look at my last post about it to see what we've looked at so far.

I wanted to show my pupils that illustrating isn’t as easy as it looks today, with 2 of their favourite from the Greenaway shortlist. 

Wolf Won’t Bite has deceptively simple illustrations while Can we Save the Tiger includes a lot of black and white pencil drawings with only some coloured.  I started the lesson by introducing them to the two books.

 …Tiger is not a typical picture book with the beautiful illustrations being complemented by scientific descriptions of the animals, and the story told is all true, about how a variety of animals are in trouble due to human activity. I read them the introduction and pointed out some of my favourite pages. I read the whole of Wolf… to them because it is a nice, quick, funny story.

I had photocopies of some pages from each for them to get inspiration from – the task was to either draw one of the endangered animals or to think of something else the pigs could get the wolf to do! The class was pretty evenly split as to which book they chose – I was surprised that 2 out of 3 boys decided to draw the tiger – while a couple of them had brilliant ideas of how the wolf could be tormented further. I particularly liked the wolf jumping through a flaming hoop, and wasn’t sure whether to be a bit alarmed by the idea of the pigs cooking him in a cauldron to eat for dinner! I like to do a display of their drawings alongside a display of the books in the library, last year’s was great but it was a bigger class and so a bigger display, at the moment most of them haven’t finished their picture so hopefully I’ll have a couple more brought to me next week.

At the end of the lesson we had heads on desks and eyes closed to anonymously vote for our favourite of the two – the other we will not look at again as part of the challenge. It was a really close thing, with a number of them having trouble deciding because they love them both, but in the end Can We Save The Tiger won with 60% of the vote.

So still in the running as far as we're concerned: Can We Save the Tiger?, Slog's Dad, The Gift, Puffin Peter and A Monster Calls.  We finished reading Slog's Dad and thought it was really good, they found some of the illustrations very disturbing!  The only one we haven't yet looked at is A Monster Calls.  It is beyond most of them to read but I think I'll show them the clip of Patrick Ness reading an excerpt that is available on the shadowing site to give them a feel for it.

Teen Librarian Monthly, 6th anniversary issue!

Just wanted to quickly point you all in the direction of this month's Teen Librarian Monthly as it is it's 6th birthday, and I wrote an article about the CILIP Youth Libraries Group for it.  I'm sure you all signed up for the newsletter last time I linked to it, but if you didn't then DO IT NOW!