Book Ratings

Something we talked about in class on Monday was books as media, and how certain books have certain content in them that maybe not everyone would want to read. When movies have sexually explicit content or a lot of swear words, they rate it as "R." Books don't have this advantage... There are no ratings or content warnings at all, and one book with lots of content can be right next to the Harry Potter books. I had never really thought about this before because I don't really read a lot, and if I do, it's only books that I know other people are reading or have read so they can tell me if there is any inappropriate content.

I remember certain parts of a book that I was required to read in school. They warned us that it had a rape scene in it, and that we could skip that chapter if we wanted. Skipping the chapter really didn't do any good for me though. The rest of the book was just as inappropriate for someone of my age to read. It really didn't benefit me at all, and I only remember the negative effects it had on me. I still wish to this day that I hadn't read that book.

Certain books with lots of inappropriate content could even be in a certain section of the library where if you need to check it out you need to be a certain age, or have an adult with you to check it out for you. Just like we treat the movies. We need to protect our youth from this and I think that content warnings and ratings would help.