At the same time nine-year-old S picked up the book I wrote about last week, I got (on Read Roger’s recommendation, via Farm School) Tricia Tunstall’s marvelous Note by Note: A Celebration of the Piano Lesson.
And in piano teacher Tunstall’s consideration of a student’s favored hip-hop track (“Playas everywhere. . . . Pimp on, pimp on, pimp on …”), I found some reinforcement for my hoped-for open-mindedness when it comes to my children’s cultural tastes, literary and otherwise:
The particular virtues of the piano are utterly irrelevant to the vast majority of rap music; I may as well be teaching Damian to play cathedral chimes. … But here is Damian at my piano, and this is what is on his iPod. I can give him my first, visceral response, and tell him that the song we just listened to represents the antithesis of the values — musical, aesthetic, even moral — to which I have devoted my life. Or I can spare him that bit of news, and try to meet him halfway. His face is eager, expectant. We listen again. I discover that there is a thudding bass line consisting of a series of notes in a repeated rhythmic figure (this, you understand, is the beat). I teach him the notes. He is elated; he thinks he has learned the song. Maybe he has.
Tunstall’s teaching experiences underscore another important point: that the audience for specific creative works cannot be contained by prescribed age brackets. Contrast this with the literary news from England, where Philip Pullman and others are mightily ticked off by a new effort to put such prescriptions on book jackets.
Just wondering: Do these age bands apply only to books for children, or can we also expect to see books prescribed for readers 45+?
As a parent I’ve got to day that age banding books is a useful tool- you walk into a book shop and encounter racks and racks of kid’s books, none of which you’ve read, most of the authors you’ve never heard of and you have to decide which are suitable for your own children. I’d be happy enough with a movie style U, PG, 12, 15 rating system. If it can be done for films then surely it can be done for books too?
I do ignore them at times- for instance I’m reading the Famous Five books with my 6 year old daughter and they’re in a 9-12 band I believe. She reads pages with my occasional help but I’m more concerned with the content of the books she’s exposed to than the “reading level”.
I think the authors need to realise that parents can’t buy and then pre-read all the books they get for their kids in the hope that it’s appropriate for them. Pullman is famous enough that parents will know what his books are like and they can make a decision about buying them but for others, I think that age-banding will actually help sales not harm them. I know that if the choice for me is a book with no age guidance and one with I’d tend to go with the latter.
I think this resistance has more to do with authors’ egos about being classified as being for this age group or that age group than anything else.
As a parent I’ve got to day that age banding books is a useful tool- you walk into a book shop and encounter racks and racks of kid’s books, none of which you’ve read, most of the authors you’ve never heard of and you have to decide which are suitable for your own children. I’d be happy enough with a movie style U, PG, 12, 15 rating system. If it can be done for films then surely it can be done for books too?
I do ignore them at times- for instance I’m reading the Famous Five books with my 6 year old daughter and they’re in a 9-12 band I believe. She reads pages with my occasional help but I’m more concerned with the content of the books she’s exposed to than the “reading level”.
I think the authors need to realise that parents can’t buy and then pre-read all the books they get for their kids in the hope that it’s appropriate for them. Pullman is famous enough that parents will know what his books are like and they can make a decision about buying them but for others, I think that age-banding will actually help sales not harm them. I know that if the choice for me is a book with no age guidance and one with I’d tend to go with the latter.
I think this resistance has more to do with authors’ egos about being classified as being for this age group or that age group than anything else.
I dunno. How much of a threat to books actually pose in terms of content? If the authors themselves wish to add descriptions of the content appropriateness, I suppose they would, otherwise, would it not provide the illusion of some well-defined rubric and not the ad hoc arbitrary evaluation that it will be. It reminds me of a study I did on magazines for tween girls. True, Tiger Beat, J-14, and Bop are clearly targeted to that audience, but the most read magazine by that group is still Vogue and Cosmo (totally disturbing, and I got no kids).
I think it would be entertaining however to create age bands for all books just to see what they would come up with. I for example, would say that nobody over 20 should be made to read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.
I dunno. How much of a threat to books actually pose in terms of content? If the authors themselves wish to add descriptions of the content appropriateness, I suppose they would, otherwise, would it not provide the illusion of some well-defined rubric and not the ad hoc arbitrary evaluation that it will be. It reminds me of a study I did on magazines for tween girls. True, Tiger Beat, J-14, and Bop are clearly targeted to that audience, but the most read magazine by that group is still Vogue and Cosmo (totally disturbing, and I got no kids).
I think it would be entertaining however to create age bands for all books just to see what they would come up with. I for example, would say that nobody over 20 should be made to read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.
Thanks for dropping by, Jay.Mac and Justin.
Jay.Mac, the big difference I see between movies and books — with regard to age-banding — is that a book is an experience that unfolds at the reader’s pace, and if the content is too mature for that reader, or just not their cup of tea for any reason, the reader can easily stop reading and move on to something else. With the immediacy of movies, which unfold at the director’s pace, the content can turn inappropriate with zero notice, and with zero investment by the viewer.
Another problem with age-banding is that it implies to older children that there’s something wrong with them — or at least with their literary tastes — if they enjoy a book explicitly targeted toward younger children. As a writer of picture books, you bet I’d like older readers to feel welcome in my audience — that’s a commercial interest as well as an ego-driven one.
Justin, I think that nobody over 20 should be able to remember having read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”…
Thanks for dropping by, Jay.Mac and Justin.
Jay.Mac, the big difference I see between movies and books — with regard to age-banding — is that a book is an experience that unfolds at the reader’s pace, and if the content is too mature for that reader, or just not their cup of tea for any reason, the reader can easily stop reading and move on to something else. With the immediacy of movies, which unfold at the director’s pace, the content can turn inappropriate with zero notice, and with zero investment by the viewer.
Another problem with age-banding is that it implies to older children that there’s something wrong with them — or at least with their literary tastes — if they enjoy a book explicitly targeted toward younger children. As a writer of picture books, you bet I’d like older readers to feel welcome in my audience — that’s a commercial interest as well as an ego-driven one.
Justin, I think that nobody over 20 should be able to remember having read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”…