The Daily Circuit: roundtable on rating YA books.

In this installment of The Daily Circuit, Kerri Miller interviews Sarah Coyne (author of the recent BYU profanity study), Pam Alleyn (founder of LitWorld and LitLife), and partway through, Andrew Karre (editorial director at Carolrhoda Books and all-round rockstar) shows up.

While it was, for sure, an interesting (and polite, thankfully) conversation, I admit to getting a tad worked up a few times. And you might do so as well, regardless of whether you're pro- or anti-ratings.

A few thoughts:

• More than once, Coyne mentions that she'd like to see some sort of notation about "gratuitous" profanity. Later in the conversation, that gets extrapolated out to touch on violence and sexual content as well. My question, of course, is: who's to say what's "gratuitous"? It's a pretty obvious question, and was asked (I think) by both Alleyn and Karre, though I don't think it was ever answered. It was also pointed out that worldview/experience would drastically affect one's opinion on what is (or isn't) gratuitous.
• There was a male caller who expressed his support for book ratings... and he said he'd like to see those ratings include "immorality". No one ran with that, but holy cow, if "gratuitous" is murky, "immorality" is more nebulous than... well, something full of mondo-nebulosity.
• Andrew Karre (bless him) brought up the fact that ratings are inherently subjective. A point that was driven home by a (pro-ratings) caller who called in about a rape scene in a YA manga, and said, "That's a book that I would have wanted a warning on." Well, sure. Because it's a topic that upsets you. For that matter, it's one that upsets me, and quite often, I, personally avoid books that deal with it. (Sorry, Marbury Lens. And also Deerskin.) But in slapping a SEXUAL ASSAULT warning label on the back of the book, the book is suddenly defined and judged by that one event, rather than by the entirety of the story.
• Karre also questioned the logistics of who would do the ratings and how the system would work, which is hello, important. And wanted to know if only YA books would be rated, or if crossover books (like Alex winners) would be rated, too.
• And finally, thankfully, someone brought up the point that Tweak—the book that keeps getting batted around as being so rife with profanity—isn't a novel: it's a memoir. That was originally published for the adult market.

Anyway, like I said, just a few of my thoughts.

If you have the time, give it a listen for yourself.

But maybe try not to drive your office-mate away with all of your crazypants muttering.

Speaking of, I should go and tell her that it's safe to come back now.

Comments

[Liviania]

The thing about ratings is that I always come back to the terrible job the MPAA does with movies. I don't want that same slapdash, non-transparent approach applied to books.

(And, in a way, I feel YA is a rating. If it were appropriate for everybody it would be published as middle grade.)

[Jill]

I can see both sides of the issue, but, as a parent, I would like to be able to more easily know what my daughter is reading (hypothetically, that is. She's 2, so right now, all she's 'reading' is "Pete the Cat")

I'd prefer this compromise: that websites like commonsensemedia.org are more extensively funded and promoted. If you haven't checked it out, this website does give an age-rating, but more importantly, it extensively discusses "questionable content" in the book, critiques whether it is "any good," and lists topics that parents can discuss with their children while they're reading. I understand your example about a book being judged by a "SEXUAL ASSAULT" warning, but in this kind of venue (one that thoroughly discusses the themes and validity of the book), I can't see any harm in informing parents about books (or whatever kind of media, that site reviews movies, websites, etc as well as books).

[Mindy]

I listened to that show at work (I usually listen to it, but it just happened to be about YA books that day), and our staff meeting was directly after it. So I got a chance to vent a bit of what I couldn't say to Kerri Miller and company. Andrew Karre made some excellent points. You're right: rock star. :)

[Matthew MacNish]

I'm paraphrasing here, but for me, the height of the show was when the host asked Andrew something along these lines:

"So do you think that getting young people to read at all is so important, that no kind of labeling or rating should be applied, because the risk of keeping young people from reading is too high?"

Andrew answered, wisely, "Yes."

Great post and summary. Thanks for putting this up.