by Fiona Traville

Created on: March 25, 2008

At first glance, the idea of rating books seems almost like an imposition upon free speech. After all, shouldn't anyone be able to write what they want? But this isn't about the First Amendment. It's about being able to pick up a book and read it, trusting that you won't get more "dirt" than you asked for.

It's one thing for a young person to choose a book with a risque cover and read it knowing that that's what they're getting. It's quite another matter when we come to books that have an ambiguous, fashionable cover that might work for any subject. Really, even when a book displays its topic, we can never really get the full scope of a work by simply "judging the book by its cover". So if a book doesn't give any clues to what's inside, it can be an exciting journey of discovery, or it can be a scarring shock. In the case of children and teens, these shocks are far more injurious because there may be no previous exposure to deaden the blow.

Now, some clarification is needed here. By simply saying that ratings would warn parents, our field of view is narrowed. Ratings for books wouldn't be some underhanded weapon, used to enable over-protective parents and keep kids from finding out about the real world. In the very real possibility of a child thinking they want to read something that they aren't at all ready for, ratings could help the child to choose for himself what's appropriate for his age. For instance, a mature eleven-year-old boy might know that he's capable of handling violence in teens' books, but that adult books would be too much. And a soft-hearted sixteen-year-old girl might decide to stick to books with little violence in them, while knowing that some sensuality wouldn't offend.

As far as the ratings themselves go, simple letter-based ratings similar to those used for movies and video games would likely be very successful. The ratings could even align somewhat with known ratings, so that the system would be more easily picked up. For example:
"G" rating for "General Audience" - a book with no violence, curse words, or overt sexuality.
"Y" rating for "Youth" - books with a few mild curse words, a little action violence, and/or a little sensuality (as opposed to sexuality, which is more physical, sensuality is mostly emotional or verbal).
"T" rating for "Teen" - books with perhaps more of the same mild curse words or one to three stronger words, more violence, and some sexuality.
"M" rating for "Mature" - books with significant amounts of cursing, violence, and/or sex.

And for each of these, as with movies, a small list under the letter rating indicating what the rating is for would be very helpful.

These ratings would obviously be for books aimed at kids and young adults; adults' books would not be part of the rating system.

Ratings for books are a very wise idea, and one that will hopefully be implemented soon. The more we know about the quality of what we're giving to our kids, the better the impact on future generations of learning and knowledge.

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