I read inappropriate material.
I always have. When other little kids were reading The Cat in the Hat, I was poring over Greek myths, the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, and stories from the old and new testaments. My parents never had a rule that any book was off-limits. When I was twelve, my mother loaned me her copy of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Firebrand and told me if I had any questions about anything in the story that I could discuss it with her. In seventh grade I read Hamlet, just for fun. When I was fourteen, I borrowed my 8th-grade English teacher's copy of The Mists of Avalon, on the condition that I do a book report on it when I was done. Sometime during this time period my grandmother loaned me a very steamy "historical romance" featuring Pocahontas. In ninth grade, my mother gave me my own copies of Jean Auel's "Earth's Children" series, which along with their anthropological/archaeological inaccuracies, are chock full of sex scenes. To me, this was normal. My classmates thought I was weird because I read such thick books, but neither they, nor my teachers, nor my family thought there was anything wrong with me reading these things at those ages. These days, I'm just as likely(sometimes more) to read something from the Young Adult section or even a cool-looking picture book from the children's section as I am anything in the adult area. A good story is a good story, and as long as the reader can handle it(or get help understanding if s/he has trouble), why should there be limits?
So when I came across this gem of a site while bouncing around the internet this evening, I read it, and I signed it, and thought I should share: http://www.notoagebanding.org/
Basically, it boils down to the fact that some publishers, prompted by The General Public(which we know is, taken as a whole, pretty stupid), are in favor of slapping a label on a book saying "this is appropriate for ages 7+," or 9+, or 11+, etc. Sounds ok at first, but I've dealt with so many people with so many different ideas as to what was or wasn't appropriate for their child at a certain age, or who refused to let a kid pick a certain book because it was too easy or too hard or "that's a little kid book, let's get you a nice big chapter book," etc...I can only see this causing more frustration for the kids, in the long run. If you read down the list of supporters thus far, there's a lot of authors, illustrators, library-types, teachers, readers, and parents who are against this sort of labeling, and willing to speak up about it. I don't do this often, but...read the statement, read the list, and if you've ever read a book "intended" for some other age group...please sign. And while you're at it...feel free to pass it on.
So when I came across this gem of a site while bouncing around the internet this evening, I read it, and I signed it, and thought I should share: http://www.notoagebanding.org/
Basically, it boils down to the fact that some publishers, prompted by The General Public(which we know is, taken as a whole, pretty stupid), are in favor of slapping a label on a book saying "this is appropriate for ages 7+," or 9+, or 11+, etc. Sounds ok at first, but I've dealt with so many people with so many different ideas as to what was or wasn't appropriate for their child at a certain age, or who refused to let a kid pick a certain book because it was too easy or too hard or "that's a little kid book, let's get you a nice big chapter book," etc...I can only see this causing more frustration for the kids, in the long run. If you read down the list of supporters thus far, there's a lot of authors, illustrators, library-types, teachers, readers, and parents who are against this sort of labeling, and willing to speak up about it. I don't do this often, but...read the statement, read the list, and if you've ever read a book "intended" for some other age group...please sign. And while you're at it...feel free to pass it on.