Dating Features
Children's authors object to age banding
A number of high profile children's writers have voiced their opposition to publishers' plans to introduce age ranging guidance onto children's books.
Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Anne Fine, who has written over 50 children's books including The Tulip Touch and Goggle-Eyes, and Michael Rosen, author of Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss, are among the critics of the plans.
Opponents of the move claim that the age classifications will cause children to discard certain books that they would otherwise have considered reading.
Rosen told the Guardian that there is too much emphasis in society placed on breaking children up into layers.
He said: "Of course if something was actually physically dangerous for, say, a child below the age of three, then age stamping it would be fine.
"But in a context where our entire concept of education is reduced to one of development, where we have become totally obsessed with marking which 'level' our children are at, extending age classification to recreational literature is a tragic idea, really."