Appar­ently there is a dis­cus­sion going around in some cir­cles about whether or not kids books should be labeled for con­tent. ¬†It's a tricky argu­ment for me because on the one hand I think they (and in fact all books) should have them. ¬†I don't want to read a book that is heav­ily laced with vio­lence and pornog­ra­phy and if I see that on the back cover of a book, I might not pick it up where I mgith have before but then thrown it out (or donated it, back off) before I got to far in because it wasn't my thing.

On the other hand, I don't know of any­one else qual­i­fied enough to tell me what I will or won't like. ¬†None of the Ama­zon, or Net­flix 'guesses' hav­ing got­ten it right and while I real­ize those are com­puter gen­er­ated, I'm not sure a human will be much better.

A big stick­ing point for me is the fact that some peo­ple are argu­ing that it isn't cen­sor­ship to put a YA-​​14 label or "WARNING: NUDITY" label on a book or movie, or TV show.

It is cen­sor­ship pure and sim­ple, no mat­ter how you try to argue it.

Why?

Because some­one else gets to decide whats appro­pri­ate for you and your kids. Who says that hav­ing cir­cum­stance X and Y in a book means it's PG-​​14 or what­ever. I know some very mature 12 year olds that can han­dle cer­tain things like vio­lence and drug abuse in a book or movie bet­ter than some 20 year olds I know. ¬†Hell, I know some 5 year olds that can deal with some things bet­ter than I can at 38!

And guess what, even if I read a book and decided that other books like it aren't the kind I want to read I'm cen­sor­ing myself. ¬†For exam­ple Danielle Steele. ¬†Can't stand them. ¬†Don't ever want to read another one even though the last one I read was close to ¬†20 years ago

To me it all smacks of the games they make kids play today where no kid loses, or they lower the require­ments for pass­ing a test or get­ting into some­thing so that 'Johnny won't get left behind' Guess what, those kids will be ill equipped for deal­ing with real life where there are win­ners and losers, and peo­ple DO get left behind.

God for­bid par­ents should take an active role in know­ing what their kids do, watch and read. ¬†You don't have to read every book, or watch every show, but know­ing what Dora is like, or check­ing out a Harry Pot­ter book or movie once in a while isn't going to kill you.

© 2009, anthony. All rights reserved.