Should books be given age guidance?

4.42.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 9th Jun 2008

Publisher's are trying to set up an 'industry standard' of putting an age-guidance figure on all their children's books e.g. this one is for children 7+ , this for 9+ etc

Several authors have set up a petition against this idea as they believe it may exclude children from reading certain books and stigmatise others for continuing to enjoy one's that may be below their age band.

If you agree this is a bad idea you can go to www.notoagebanding.org where the authors who set up the petition (Philip Pullman. Anne Fine and Adele Geras) explain more fully their reasoning.