CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

Recommended yesterday by Meg Rosoff for mature readers, Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels is exciting predictable controversy in Britain and has revived the age-banding debate.

Philip Pullman is one of a number of authors to comment:

Designers at Random House have given Lanagan’s novel one cover illustration for younger readers, while another has been chosen for the adult edition being published by Jonathan Cape. Pullman feels the mysterious cover portrait picked for a young audience is likely to draw readers in without giving much information. He does not believe, though, that children’s writers should steer clear of tough material.

“I don’t think there should be areas that children’s books can’t deal with. Why should there be, given that children are likely to encounter much stronger subjects in real life, ranging from divorce – which once used to be something terrible and awful that you must not talk about – to drug trafficking and sex?”

It’s either taken a while, or taken a while to be reported, but UK librarians have now joined the campaign to oppose the prominent placing of recommended age ranges on books published in Britain.

The No to Age Banding Campaign has been a steadily growing movement since mid year, with Philip Pullman’s voice prominent in the debate.

The UK issue of putting recommended ages on books for children just will not go away. Now the Minister for Children, Ed Balls, has weighed into the debate :

“While we are broadly supportive of any measures which help parents to choose the right books for their children, we advise caution in this area”, Balls wrote, backing author concerns that age guidance can demoralise children who read below their supposed age group, and that it can encourage complacency if children are reading above their age group.

The children’s minister recommended that “parents seeking guidance about this contact librarians or teachers who know about the full range of children’s literature”.

In the past week, an entertaining debate has been raging between Philip Pullman and J. L. Bell on the Child Lit Listserv.

The No To Age Banding website is worth a visit for those new to the issue.

More news from The Guardian on this hot UK issue.

And here is Philip Pullman’s address on age-banding at a conference in Cambridge at the weekend. (Thanks to Achokablog for the pointer).

In early June, we wrote about an issue that was just beginning to make waves in the UK. The Publishers’ Association has slightly modified their stance on the age banding of books since then, but the issue just won’t go away.

The No to Age Banding website now has a very impressive list of signatories and is inviting anyone with an interest – TL, teacher, librarian, author, illustrator, parent – who disagrees with the age banding concept to add their name. British books arriving here will, of course, have these age bands on the cover.

The right book for the right reader at the right time – that is a given in the world of children’s literature. But what if the book cover says you are too young / too old to read it? This is a controversy just starting to hit its straps in the UK with publishers there intending to put age guidelines on the covers of children’s / YA books.

More than eighty authors, including Philip Pullman, are fighting back with a letter to be published in Bookseller magazine later this week. Not all authors are against the idea, however. Meg Rosoff says that it could be ‘extremely helpful for parents.’

Read the Guardian report here.