Wolves' Lair

Another petition, again about a matter close to my heart: books!

[quoted directly from loriel_eris]

The gist of the matter is that from the autumn some publishers are going to put age banding on children's books. ie 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen. Why? So that people can buy age appropriate books for kids. Huh. That's what I thought front cover, text size, book description and where the bookseller had placed it on the shelves was for...

[end quote]

[Links from loriel_eris]

A Telegraph article

An article in The Guardian

[This is all me now!]

Frankly, I think this is ridiculous, and pointless. Considering the fact that I read books way above my age when I was younger, I'm totally against it, mainly for the reason that it would put off parents letting their children read what they wanted. You know, 'you're only 10, you can't read a book that's labelled 12+' or whatever! It seems to have completely forgotten the point that children read at different levels - as I said, I read a lot of books way above my reading age when I was younger (mainly because there was nothing else to do!) but my parents never censored what I read. In fact, they actively encouraged it! Personally, I feel that children can only benefit from a wide range of reading. I highly doubt that young children (and let's face it, once kids reach about the age of 13, parents aren't going to be able to prevent them reading what they want!) will actively seek out books that are potentially 'harmful' to them. (I'm thinking of descriptive crime novels and books with a lot of sex - although I'd read a Mills & Boon when I was about ten (in fact, it was one of my favourite books at the time!).) There are a lot of entertaining reads that might be considered 'too old' for an eleven year old, but each child is different!

I can appreciate the reason for banding of films - although that only works in the cinemas. In films, nothing is left up to the imagination. Everything is right in front of you, in blazing technicolour (most of the time. I realise that sometimes you have to infer, in which case younger children probably wouldn't get the references and it will all be fine.). Violence, blood flying every where, sex. Books can leave that up to the imagination. And reading about blood flying is not the same as seeing it! In books, children can read things quite happily and not necessarily realise what they mean. They might take a completely different meaning from the one that was meant (in the right way). I'm afraid I'm not explaining myself particularly well - if it doesn't make sense, then comment, and I'll try and do better!

From my experience, a lot of parents don't pay any attention to the age banding of films when it comes to buying/renting films. Instead, they make an informed decision regarding their child and what they know the film to contain (unless they don't care at all, in which case the point is moot). Why can't they do that with books, as I'm sure they've been doing all these years? What has prompted this? I've never heard of stories of children being scarred for life from having read a book that was 'too old' for them. Frankly, I find the whole thing offensive.

I mean, surely the fact that in bookstores (and online, so the getting rid of bookstores idea doesn't really hold true) there are children's sections, 12+ sections, teen sections (which hold some great books!), infants sections etc is enough guidance, for goodness' sake! What's next, having to show your ID to buy a book?!

It seems pretty pointless to me, and I think that perhaps the people who have come up with this idea have had a crisis of imagination and are clutching at straws to keep their jobs!

I have been reading from as soon as I was able, and devoured everything that I could. My parents never restricted my reading, and as such I believe that I benefited with a great love of all books. Age banding is pointless, as far as I can see, and can only be damaging to the youngsters of today. We are already having a hard time encouraging children to read, and adding the stigma of reading books with age banding on them (also, think of the potential bullying possibilities), I think it would only make things more difficult. Surely, the sectioning of books into different sections in bookstores is enough guidance for parents?! Is this age banding insulting the intelligence of parents?

- what I wrote in my email

Anyway, here is the petition website. Please send them an email of support if you agree.
No To Age Banding

Okay, well, I decided quite a while ago that I would post an entry from Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land every day, but then I never got round to it. So this is me just starting!

First of all, the reviews on the back are great!

---

An indispensible guide for anyone stuck in the realms of fantasy without a magic sword to call their own. - Terry Pratchett

I've got a magic sword actually, so I'll stick with that if you don't mind. Even if it is broken. - Aragorn, son of Arathorn

Would have been a lot more use on the quest than three Elven hairs. - Gimli, son of Gloin

---

And now for the first entry (which isn't actually an entry but a guide in how to use the book, but it's a must read!):

What to do first:

1. Find the MAP. It will be there. No Tour of Fantasyland is complete without one. It will be found in the front part of your brochure, quite near the page that says:

For Mum and Dad for having me
and for Jeannie (or Jack or Debra or Donnie or ...) for putting up with me so supportively
and for my nine children for not interrupting me
and for my Publisher for not discouraging me
and for my Writers' Circle for listening to me
and for Barbie and Greta and Albert Einstein and Aunty May

and so on. Ignore this, even if you're wondering if Albert Einstein is Albert Einstein or in fact a dog.

This will be followed by a short piece of prose that says:

When the night of the wolf waxes strong in the morning, the wise man is wary of a false dawn.
Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, VI ii

Ignore this too (or, if really puzzled, look up GNOMIC UTTERANCES in the Toughpick section). Find the Map.



The whole first entry can be found at this webpage, because I didn't want to blow up LJ! (The reference to Toughpick is talking about the main part of the book; the glossary part.)

[ETA: All of the writing I'm quoting is copyrighted to Diana Wynne Jones and Gollancz publishers. I don't intend to post every entry, because that would take years and bore everyone to death. Instead I was thinking about posting interesting ones with the idea of getting people interested in the book, so I'm not encouraging people to read my entries instead of buying the book. You should buy the book if you like what I post, because it's really funny!]

This is a combination of lists that I got from various sources. I don't think that there are doubled-up copies, but there may be, in which case, I apologise.

It's behind a cut simply because it's a very, very, very long list!

( Have you read it? )

So, the discussion that chelle86, nimoloth and I are having about Diana Wynne Jones' books reminded me of another author (who I always get mixed up with DWJ) who's books I love: Diane Duane. She writes the Young Wizards series (which I originally thought was a trilogy and was delighted to discover not that long ago that there were in fact a lot more books). So I seek her out on the internet, and she's got her own fanfic writing project! How awesome is that?! She sets the scenario, writes the first few paragraphs, and then fans write the next ones, vote on which one is best and then it gets stuck on the end as the next part! The work becomes the copyright of Diane Duane, but she legally promises not to use it in any of her future books.

I think it's awesome that a well-established author is embracing fanfiction. Also, she has a weblog, where she keeps her fans up-to-date on the goings on in her world - like the prospect of a movie being made of So You Want to Be A Wizard?. *g*

ETC: I had to edit chelle86's name, because I accidentally put her down as chelle89, who also exists, and I apologise to both of them for getting them mixed up! *g*

Hey, everyone, in case you haven't heard, there's you can vote for Jen Garner, Alias, and David Anders, as Best Actress, Best TV Show, and Best Newcomer on:http://www.syfyportal.com

I've been DLing photos of kyizi's favourite underage man, Daniel Radcliffe, since I realised that I had hardly any photos of him! Anyway, kyizi, if you haven't got that many of him, there are some really good ones at www.danradcliffe.co.uk.

Also, loriel_eris has been and bought me David and Leigh Eddings' new book, The Elder Gods since I have all of the Belgariad, the Mallorean, the Elenium, and the Tamuli, apart from The Rivan Codex and I also have The Redemption of Althalus. I figured I should get the next book written by them!

Haven't done much else, although I returned to my "Body in Balance" class yesterday, which is a misture of Tai Chi, Pilates, and Yoga. Because I haven't been in a while, I'm incredibly sore today. My lower stomach muscles hurt, as do my upper arms and chest. Argh! I suppose it's doing me good, but a long hot soak in the bath is called for tonight!

So, I've been a busy little bee. Just finished the second and third books of the Tamora Pierce series I've been reading. My rant over pairings was not completely justified. ( The reason being )

I spent all night reading them. They're so good that I actually didn't read DV14 last night! I know, shock, horror! I don't know what came over me!

Today, things did not go so well. My alarm didn't go off, so I missed my lecture in the morning. Then when I did get up, I managed to burn my first piece of toast and set off the smoke alarm, and nearly burnt the second - I had to cut a bit of it off to make it edible.

Then, I realised that I was going to make a manip for my Calendar's page. Fortunately, the screencap that I wanted didn't need much manipping, and it only took me about 15 mintues to do it. It's up. I also changed the colour code for my Friends page, (I changed it to a Web colour) but it doesn't seem to be working. However, loriel_eris said it looks fine on another computer, so maybe it's these ones here.

Am sitting next to the charming and quite scrumptious Russell at the moment. Yumm!

Sorry for the random comment, but I don't actually want him to see it! *g* How embarrassing would that be! And don't say anything kyizi!

Yes, I'm bored. I've just finished going over loriel_eris's CV for her, and changing a few things, and now I have to hang around for an hour, doing nothing. Don't you hate it when you're on the Internet and you really can't be bothered doing anything, but as soon as you get home, you can think of all sorts of things you could have done.

What's more, I can't even go and download any fic, since I don't have Frankie with me. Grr!

Hmm, speaking of fic, I'm in the middle of reading Tamora Pierce books, so I might go and see if I can find any decent fanfic.

Am also hoping to have a new layout for my Friends page for tomorrow. I've got some ideas floating about in my head, I've just got to find time to do something about them tonight, in between doing the ironing and watching ER!

( EDITTED: spoilers for Tamora Pierce books )