Grading a book-why and how-I

Creating books for children is a catch-22 situation. You are forced to restrict the flow of your creativity to match with that of your target group. However, your creativity can't be too chaotic or closed. It has to give the sense of being open and fluid.

In USA, there are several institutions and agencies involved in grading a book. The entire book is throughly studied in terms of the total number of words used, images, illustrations, page layout, page size, use of complex and simple sentences and many other parameters. For example, Fountas and Pinell, the leading book grading agency of USA has developed several similar parameters to grade a book. A book can be graded between Grade A to Z. Grade A being the book for children that are learning to read, while Grade Z being the book for children who are reading to learn.

I have been an editor working on children books for many years. I have been involved in almost every procedure and aspect of making or creating a children book. And I can safely talk on almost every aspect of book making processes. What is the importance of book making processes in grading a book? Are they more important than a book itself? Why do we need to grade a book? What is more fundamental in grading a book-" the teaching experience or the reading experience"? In other words, who should be considered while grading a book-a teacher or a reader? Does grading restricts and limits the entire purpose of making a book? Who can grade a book-those who make or create it, those who read it, those who use it to teach or those who are independent to all aspects of a book?

I would, in several articles, try to answer and find answers of these and many other queries that are important in understanding a book itself. In this article, I would limit myself on understanding the difficulties of grading a book.

One day my managing editor called me and our entire department in the confrence room. He was serious and that indicated that he meant business. He asked all of us to be ready to make a series of books on animals for the children between age group of 3 to 5. I was shocked, 'how can a 3 years old kid read and understand the complex world of animals'. Atleast I never did that. I asked and he replied that books for this age group are made as a refernce book for parents. They read aloud these books to their kids. The idea sound great. Wow! we are involving parents in the reading business.

But what if parents themselves have little idea about the animal world. Lets take an example.
The chapter on butterfly says- "Butterfly is an insect".
The above sentence assumes that the reader (read the parents) knows:

• what an insect is
• that there are the other insects, and
  
• insects are animals.
  

There are many other things that the above sentence assumes:

• that the reader knows that we use an before any word that starts with a vowel
• that the reader knows what the vowel is

There are many things that the above sentence hides:

1. It does not say that there are other butterflies
2. It does not say that insects are animals

to be continues...................

Cheers
Kundan