Petition Age Rating for Books

There is an age rating for videos, films and now music videos is following suit.

I am asking for an age rating as a guideline on books so that adults can at a glance see if their child is reading inappropriate material.

At the moment any child can buy a book and read it which contains explicit sexual and violent content. I believe this could possibly have a negative psychological effect on a child and the way they see our social world.

We do allow children to see films containing sexual acts of rape, violence, etc so why do we allow them to read about it?

The book Cry Silent Tears is a perfect example of this and my daughter read this at the age of 12. The picture on the front of the book did not alert the family to the content. We were horrified by what we later read.

I am sending this to the Education Minister as I feel they will have a child's interests at heart and be able to protect vulnerable children from reading inappropriate material.