[bksvol-discuss] Re: adult ratings Re: Re: Uh oh -- re weird, Adult rating

  • From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 19:44:20 -0800 (PST)

It seems to me, again, that if parents think it's o.k.
for their teenagers to read the book they can get it
for their child. I'm sure children hear about these
books from their schoolmates. When my daughters were
in, I think, 5th or 6th grade, they wanted to read
Flowers in the Attic because their friends were
talking about it. I looked at it -- in fact, I read it
--but I didn't think it appropriate for them to read
at that age.

I check the Adult box when there is explicit sex and
profanity -- and graphic violence--because I know,
from reading the posts on this list, that many readers
on this list would not want to read them. Sometimes,
because of the delicate language used to describe the
varaious sex acts and because the oaths are relatively
minor, bookshare doesn't suggest the Adult rating. I
don't know what words the automatic screener spots to
give a book an adult rating, but it doesn't pick up
things that I've gathered from posters would offend
them. 

Whether or not to give a book the Adult rating is
actually up to the submitter and, finally, to the
validator, who can change the automatic rating either
up or down and give reasons for the change. The person
doing the rating, though, has to, I think, base the
decision not on what he or she thinks  but on what
they think other might want to know before downloading
the book.

Maybe the Adult rating should be abolished and instead
another space on the upload page should take its place
in which the validator could say whether the book
contains graphic sex or violence or profanity. Maybe
we could use a rating system like the movies. There
are some books I've validated that I've recommended
for mature teenagers. 

Cindy 

-- Shayla Parker <shayla@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Just as an example, I vallidated a book last month
> entitled Please Don't 
> Kill the Freshman. It was written by a
> fifteen-year-old girl, and clearly 
> intended for a teenage audience. The book details
> the authors first year of 
> high school, and it is scattered with profanity,
> sexual references, and 
> frank discussion of the things that, whether we
> sensor what they read or 
> not, all teenagers think about. It is also a
> beautiful and touching book 
> that could be very illuminating and useful for other
> teenagers who struggle 
> with the author's problems. The adult word checker
> flagged it as adult, and 
> I do agree the book dealt with adult subject matter.
> However, having read 
> the book, and knowing its intention to share this
> author's stories with 
> other young people, I think the adult rating is
> inappropriate for the book. 
> Unfortunately at the time I had not thought much on
> the topic so simply let 
> the automater do what it wanted. I rather regret
> this now, as the book is 
> entirely hidden from its intended audience, and from
> the people for whom it 
> might do the most good.
> 
> At 01:02 PM 1/17/2005, you wrote:
> >Interesting theory, Mike. But I actually wonder if
> there is such a service 
> >regarding "adult" rating" and what it might mean.
> When I think of stuff 
> >rated adult, for example, I tend to think of films
> that might get an X 
> >rating or
> >more than one x,  thus keeping people under 18 out
> of the theater. but 
> >with a  library, a kid can go in there and look in
> any section he or she 
> >wants. Librarians can't censor what kids look at in
> the stacks, That's their
> >parents job, if they feel so inclined and wish to
> enforce such rules. But 
> >here, with the BookShare audience, they somehow
> feel compeled to do 
> >parents' jobs for them and restrict access to the
> stacks, as it were. If a
> >library can't restrict which aisle of a library a
> 14-year-old walks down 
> >and which books she picks off the shelf, why should
> BookShare? Why does 
> >BookShare have more legal exposure in this regard
> than a library
> >would? But I do agree that it would be nice to take
> the matter of these 
> >ratings out of the hands of people with vastly
> different standards or 
> >those of the equally arbitrary "naughty word"
> checker.   I wonder if 
> >parents of
> >young people under 18 or the schools who get
> accounts for those young 
> >people understand just how hit and miss this whole
> system is. You could 
> >have an extremely conservative person who feels
> that just one or two
> >mild curse words are sufficient that a child
> shouldn't see the book, so 
> >they call it adult and restrict access to anybody 
> under 18. Or you could 
> >have somebody who does not believe in such ratings
> and who would
> >never assign the rating no matter what the book's
> content. And there are 
> >all shades in between.
> >Personally, I think the rating is far too broad,
> treating kindergarteners 
> >the same as high school seniors, with respect to
> the material that they 
> >can have access to. Maybe what they should have
> done is have a special
> >kids rating that could be put on books intended for
> kids elementary level 
> >or younger, rather than trying to define what
> "adult" means.  But that 
> >didn't happen.
> >Mary
> 
> Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
> Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the
> brave.
> I know. But I do not approve.
> And I am not resigned.
> 
> -- 'Dirge Without Music', Edna St. Vincent Millay
> 
> Ring the bells that still can ring,
> forget your perfect offering,
> there is a crack in everything,
> that's how the light gets in.
> --Leonard Cohen 
> 
> 
> 



                
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