U.K. Authors Protest Age Ranging Plan

By Julia Eccleshare -- Publishers Weekly, 6/3/2008 9:14:00 AM

Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo and current Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen are leading a rapidly growing movement of writers, illustrators, librarians, independent booksellers and others working in children’s books to hit back at the publishers forthcoming age-guidance on children’s books. Under the campaign slogan “No to Age Banding,” the campaign is swiftly gathering signatures.

Introduced for sales reasons following research that showed that consumers wanted some age guidance to help them in choosing books (see our story in April), the first books are becoming available just as this considerable backlash is launched. Thus far, resistance has been unspoken: several publishers, including Bloomsbury, David Fickling and Walker Books, while not willing to say that they are against age guidance, are not putting the ranges onto their books.

In an unusual breach between publishers and their authors, the opposition campaign leaders seek to “disavow publicly any connection with such age-guidance figures,” according to their statement, on the grounds that age guidance is ill-conceived and will damage the interests of young readers. They state a number of reasons against, including stigmatizing readers and their “passionately held conviction that everything about a book should seek to welcome readers in and not keep them out.”

As author Anne Fine told PW, “I’m mystified that the level of resistance has taken publishers by surprise. There was much talk of consulting ‘key industry figures.’ Perhaps they forgot the authors. But they’ve been sending us out for years to meet the very people who buy the books. I think most of us know that building long-term readers for a healthy profession for all of us for a long time to come is not at all the same thing as aiming for a short-term sale.”