Sex, Drugs, and Reading Levels
It’s your collection, your community. You make the call.
By Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2007
I really enjoy getting out and meeting our readers, and whenever I give a talk, I always leave plenty of time for questions and answers. As soon as I finish, an eager hand will usually shoot up. Great, I think, I’ve really engaged someone!
But the question is rarely about the subject at hand. Instead, the question usually goes something like this: “I bought a book based on an SLJ review, only to find that on page 54 a boy pulls down his pants and urinates against a car. Why didn’t you warn me?”
Or a book is full of curse words. Or bodily functions. A graphic novel is too graphic. A teenage couple talks about sleeping together. Or they get drunk and do sleep together. (It’s always fiction and, interestingly, in this age of Columbine and Virginia Tech, no one complains about too much violence—and there’s plenty.)
What’s going on here? Several things. First, school library collections are under greater scrutiny than ever before. Trust me, I’m sympathetic (I’ll save the editorial on self-censorship for another day). Reports of book challenges turn up every hour, it seems, and they are one of the toughest, and at times scariest, parts of your job. It’s why earlier this year I asked Pat Scales to write a column, “Scales on Censorship.”
Second, many of our readers believe that there is an unspoken contract between them and us that we will keep them safe. That our reviews will alert them to any content that might get them into hot water with any number of possible stakeholders.
Finally, and this does get expressed, some readers want ratings—akin to the system that the Classification and Rating Administration of the Motion Picture Association of America uses to rate films.
What we do at SLJ is review literature for children and young adults. What we can’t do is keep you safe by imagining how any number of adults, with any number of agendas, might construe a novel. Our reviewers consider the elements of good literature: pacing, plot, character development, mood, language, and style. We ask “is this a good book?” and “who is the likely reader?”
The librarians who rely on our reviews work in schools—both sectarian and nonsectarian—as well as public libraries. They are situated in communities that extend from the very progressive to the very conservative. With the wide range of human experiences mirrored in today’s children’s, and especially young adult, literature, and the vastly different contexts in which a book could be read, it’s impossible for us to predict (even if we wanted to) whether a book is suitable or not for your community. That’s your job.
What we can do is alert you to extreme language, graphic sex, and gratuitous violence. But at the same time, we aren’t counting every “hell,” “damn,” or exposed body part. It’s a balancing act, and every book, reviewer, and 250-word review is different.
But we also ask that you read the reviews carefully. Consider the novel’s characters and setting. Look at the grade level, which is determined by reading, interest, and maturity level. For example, if we designate a graphic novel as being appropriate for grades six through nine, there is a reason we didn’t say grades four to six. If I were buying it for an elementary library that extended through the sixth grade, I’d be sure to check further before I added it to the collection.
Our society continues to change dramatically, and developing appropriate collections—always a tough job—has gotten exponentially more difficult. Our editors have been there, and our reviewers are there. Keep lobbing me those tough questions, or respond on our Web site. Only through dialogue will we be able to see our way ahead.
