Fuck this very much. Mature labels like this is what they do in Russia to queer books. YA books already have age ranges inside or on the back of books. Introducing this kind of labeling in the age of censorship we're in is a very specific, very gross choice and it says a lot about the publishers. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

sharpegirl.bsky.social • 16 days ago

Fuck this very much. Mature labels like this is what they do in Russia to queer books. YA books already have age ranges inside or on the back of books. Introducing this kind of labeling in the age of censorship we're in is a very specific, very gross choice and it says a lot about the publishers.

Reposted from Children's Bookshelf

Entangled Publishing will soon expand its YA offerings with two new imprints, Mayhem Books and Mischief Books, with the aim to provide teens with age-appropriate storytelling

Comments

sharpegirl.bsky.social•16 days ago

The age ranges that are already on the inside flap or back covers are perfectly accessible. They also go up or down depending on content. I know because 6 TIMES's range went up simply because I use "fuck" a lot. On-page death of parent and emotional abuse? Fine. But fuck x15+ is gonna age things up.

sharpegirl.bsky.social•16 days ago

Putting Mature 16+ on a cover achieves exactly the opposite of what Entangled is claiming they want: making books more accessible for the teenagers of all age ranges. It makes the book unsafe for teens to bring home in hostile environments.

Imagine thinking this is good in our banning climate.

sharpegirl.bsky.social•16 days ago

And because it pisses me off every time someone decides we need to head down the steep slope of Hays Code-ing books: THE AGE RANGES ARE ALREADY THERE! It's standard to have them on the book, typically inside the HC flap or near the ISBN! A Mature 16+ cover label is performative fascist crap.

lizbarr.bsky.social•16 days ago

Entangled always seems to have good intentions, but they often make choices that raise my eyebrows.

rugbyames.bsky.social•16 days ago

The ratings always feel so icky and so sex-focused. Words like “mature” defo give me the ick. Additionally, these ratings can take the decision making power away from teens, or worse — induce shame where it doesn’t need to be.

maraleia.bsky.social•16 days ago

This is bullshit.

boltdm.bsky.social•16 days ago

The first part is not true. Queer books are straight up banned in Russia, and if someone decides to distribute such books, they risk facing jail time. Like, queer media and queer narrative are pretty much erased in Russia, and being queer itself is a crime.

sharpegirl.bsky.social•16 days ago

Apologies, I should've specified I was referring to past rules/laws. The last time this was brought up in my own publishing life in terms of Russian subrights was 2019-2020. We had to agree to a content label with my Russian publisher, so this was the case back then & is what Entangled is emulating

boltdm.bsky.social•16 days ago

It's ok, after all, the current censorship hysteria in Russia did begin with "let's label all of the media bacause children". It was, like, 10-15 years ago. After that it quickly spiraled down to "we can ban whatever we want and nobody can stop us".

boltdm.bsky.social•16 days ago

There are pieces of media that the Russian government considers to be way too important to erase completely, so in these cases they just erase queer people and/or queer relationships and pretend it was always like that.