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Michelle Magorian

Michelle Magorian is an actor and author of Goodnight Mister Tom and other children's novels.

Age banding: Against

18.08.08

The following comment is from the latest Children's Bookseller: which you can view by clicking this link.

At a recent book launch, I gazed out at children, teenagers and adults and thought "Isn't this wonderful? They've all come to listen to the same story, they haven't been segregated into age boxes." Then I heard about age banding. My first reaction was shock. And then I thought of my sons who had both enjoyed one particular author at vastly different ages.

I was perplexed by the results of the market research, which favoured age banding, so I approached parents, grandparents, aunts, teachers and librarians and asked them for their opinions. They knew nothing about it. When I began to explain that certain publishers wanted to put ages on children's books I was rarely allowed to finish my sentence. "But children develop at different rates," they would interrupt. This was followed by horror and disbelief. Their concerns were that it would damage young children, making some feel like boffins and others like babies, and it would put them off reading. I discovered that young people hated the idea too. Out of around 150 13 to 15-year-olds I met, only two voted for age banding.

I am fortunate, two of my publishers will not be age banding my books. But why age band books anyway when there is a wealth of guidance in bookshops, on the internet, on book jackets and from school librarians? A maths teacher I know has been complaining for years about ages being put on maths books. Struggling children have refused to work from them explaining to him that they are for the "wrong" age. He has already removed the jacket from one.

If publishers don't listen to the opposition to their plans, I predict that the sound of jackets being ripped off will escalate. It will either be that or scores of lost young readers.

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Comments on this article

By Lookman - Children's Author

I must agree that age banding will create a completely new area of extra costs to publishers. Not only will there be additional correspondence between authors and their publishers. There will be disputes when a member of the reading public objects to the content of a book; perhaps leading to litigation. If Age banding is established it may become difficult to bury and might decrease overall sales. In addition, it will be interesting when publisher’s editors have to justify their grading to authors; who may reasonably ask when their sales fall why this or that content upon which banding was justified was not discussed and changed before publication. There is a possibility that titles may have to be produced in different editions under more than one age range grouping.

01 Sep 08 18:44

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By Eliyahu - Science Fiction Writer

As one who taught myself to read shortly after my third birthday, I would have been severely constrained by age banding on the books I read. I gave up on the children's section at the library by the age of seven despite the efforts of the local librarian to constrain my interests to those she felt appropriate for my age group. Age banding follows the fallacy of too many other educational endeavors which are based on a presupposition that all children develop in lockstep and are ready to advance only with the passage of time. Not only does this practice tend to hold children back from reading beyond what some stranger has decided meets their needs and abilities, but it also embarrasses older readers who lack in reading ability and can't handle so-called age-appropriate material.

22 Dec 08 18:06

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