Librarians oppose age recommendations for books

by Blake

Librarians have thrown their weight behind the campaign to keep age ranges off children's books, saying they will ignore the classifications and describing them as potentially harmful to children's enjoyment of reading.

"Anything that puts a barrier between a child and a book is a problem," said Tricia Adams, chair of the youth libraries group at CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals). "The issue for me is that when a child takes [an age banded book] out of a library they are then badged by their peers, who'll be saying 'that's for seven-year-olds, and you're ten'."