Philip Pullman, children’s laureate Michael Rosen, Michael Morpurgo and David Almond, over 80 authors, illustrators, librarians, teachers and booksellers will publish a statement in this Friday’s Bookseller opposing the initiative and disassociating themselves from age guidance.
The authors’ statement describes the proposal as "ill-conceived, damaging to the interests of young readers, and highly unlikely, despite the claims made by those publishers promoting the scheme, to make the slightest difference to sales". Pullman told The Bookseller: "Many writers felt as if we’d been presented with a fait accompli, and there was a certain amount of anger expressed. The question was what to do about it. We decided that the best way forward was simply to say publicly ‘Not in our name’."
The authors outline a number of reasons why age-ranging is harmful: it will discourage children from reading outside their age band; it is over-prescriptive; and it is unnecessary in that there are ample of clues on books as to their target age.
Pullman said: "We are not in a position to dictate anything and I wouldn’t want to tell publishers how to run their business, but if one of my books is published with an age range, I’m dissociating myself from it, it is nothing to do with me."
The judgment to commence with age guidance was taken in April 2008 by most of the publishers of children’s literature, including Hachette, Penguin, Random House, Scholastic and HarperCollins. The system will be implemented this autumn, starting it on black and white fiction and eventually rolling it out to all children’s categories. It will see a black and white design placed on the back of the books, near the bar code, with the categories of 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen.
Philip Pullman biography, bibliography, interviews and book reviews