I was looking through some stuff the other day and was reminded of a comment one of my reviews had received, suggesting that instead of just calling something a children’s book, I should name a specific age range. It occurs to me that I have absolutely no idea how to define such things. I believe I have two major factors working against me:
- No children in my life. I am not a parent; I don’t babysit; my nieces and nephews all live halfway across the country; and I was the youngest child so I never even had a younger sibling to care for. In short, I have exactly zero experience in choosing age-appropriate literature for children of any age.
- I’m not even sure if my own childhood reading was age-appropriate. First of all, I didn’t really enjoy reading. I hated everything we ever read for school. Aside from a few books by Beverly Cleary, Gordon Korman, and Daniel Pinkwater, I don’t recall much between picture books and adult science fiction and fantasy. By the time I was a preteen, I was reading mostly Piers Anthony and Robert Asprin. Is this age-appropriate? Hard to say, I guess, though I did grow up to be a (fairly) well-adjusted and (somewhat) normal adult. All the same, I’m sure I embarrassed my mother that time when I looked up from one of the Incarnations of Immortality books to ask her what a concubine was.
I am also at a loss to define “age-appropriate” in terms of subject material. I could probably rate books in terms of vocabulary, but who am I to say what topics are or are not suitable for a child of a certain age? Most banned/challenged books become that way because someone believes it is inappropriate for children of a certain age group. When do people magically become old enough to handle any variety of topics? I say if you’re in high school, you should be capable of handling adult themes. I read Night
So, how do you determine the proper age range for a book?
by Robert Asprin: This is the twelfth and final volume of one of my favorite series of all time. A word of warning: read the rest of the series first. And if it’s been a while (as it had been with me), at least reread Sweet Myth-tery of Life. I was a little lost here and there, as some events in this book take place simultaneously with its predecessor. Also note that as this is a book with M.Y.T.H. Inc. in the title, it is not narrated solely by Skeeve, but (in this case) mostly by Guido. His incessant Guys’n’Dolls-esque speech gets a bit tiring from time to time, but if you enjoy old mafia movies there are certain scenes that are just a hoot. I would share the plot, but there isn’t much to say. Ostensibly it’s about a popular uprising against The Great Skeeve for raising taxes, but really it’s just a tying up of loose ends. The ending is optimistic, and it’s nice to have some closure after all these years.