Warning: this post contains scenes of graphic violence and dangerous opinions
The Books of Bayern are finalists for this year's Mythopoeic Award! the goose girl was a finalist its year, but I didn't realize that the Mythopoeic Awards often honor entire series of books. I'm honored for the whole series. It's a lovely award with a group of extremely fine finalists.
Some of you have wondered about the STD stats Janette Rallison referenced on my blog two posts ago. She elaborates on her own blog for those interested.
The comments on the previous posts have wandered over the topic of a book rating system. This is something that people have proposed many times, and was of great debate in the UK the past couple of years. I can see the appeal. We talk about parents reading the books their kids read. What if a parent has three voracious readers of all ages? How can he or she possibly keep up? If a book outlined the maturity level (different from age level) and listed some of the questionable topics, then wouldn't that be great for parents?
My problem is I just don't see how it can possibly work to any effect at all. I'd love to be convinced of this, but I don't see how it can function. It is so hard to take an incident out of a story's context. For example, book of a thousand days is often thought of as my most moral book. The main character has very strong personal values and is so courageous and loyal, I'm bitter I don't get to be her. I'm very proud of how that story turned out and would be thrilled to share it with any reader age 10-100. Now those of you who have read it, imagine if it were subjected to a rating system and came with a label that cautioned: Total Public Nudity, Violence, Parental Abuse, Sensuality, Warfare, Starvation, Religious Viewpoint. Goodness, what a smutty and morally objectionable title! It's sure to offend everyone! Burn it, I say! Burn away! How can any rating or warning sum up what a story tells or what a reader's response to it might be? What good would those labels really do? Think of all the books you've read that contained Sexual Content and how vastly different they are. There are some books with Sexual Content I would hope every twelve-year-old would read, and others I would never read myself.
Think about the books you studied in high school English class and the warning labels that would accompany those. But those were (most likely) adult books, so they wouldn't have labels. They're given to kids, but wouldn't be labeled like children's books would. Instead, the entire YA section, which in my mind are far more age-appropriate than Hemingway, Steinbeck, Chaucer, etc., would be branded. Imagine all those parents eyeballing the labels, forbidding their kids from reading books that might have had huge positive impact on their lives.
Realistically, the kids who self-monitor their reading would put down a book themselves once they hit a passage they were uncomfortable with. And the other kids, the ones parents are probably most worried about, wouldn't they be more attracted to a book that advertised "Sexual Content, Graphic Violence!" I'm making these words larger because they are what would stand out. They would stand out to school districts and school libraries who might be pressured to ban any books with certain kinds of content, no matter the context and value.
I want to add, too, that I think this is a system that could be misunderstood and abused by either side of the continuum. Sometimes we shout the loudest about those darn conservatives who are too jumpy about sex and violence and diverse lifestyles. But the truth is that half the voices of protest come from those darn liberals who are too jumpy about religion and conservative values. This is not a conservative nor a liberal issue. It's just a matter of will a book rating system really accomplish what we hope it would? Or will it backfire and in turn limit freedom of speech for people of all beliefs?
Comment away!