What does "age-appropriate" actually mean?

"Age-appropriate" is often confused with printing a child's name on the cover. But the difference between a four-year-old and a nine-year-old is not the name — it is sentence length, how much can happen at once, and which feelings can be called by their names.

Five separate age bands

Nori Tales stories are built for five bands: 1–3, 4–6, 7–8, 9–10 and 11–12. They are not a label on the cover; they are an input to the rules that produce the text itself.

What changes between the bands

Early on, sentences are short, one thing happens at a time, and the telling stays concrete: things that can be seen, heard and touched. As a child grows, sentences lengthen, more than one thing can happen on a page, and abstract states — impatience, jealousy, embarrassment — start being named.

Feelings follow the same order. In the 4–6 band, abstract states like anger or excitement are handled through warm, concrete comparisons, and sharing and friendship come to the fore. In the older bands a child can follow the idea that a character's intention and their behaviour are two different things.

Why swapping the hero's name is not enough

A text with the name replaced still speaks to a nine-year-old in a four-year-old's sentences. Children notice — and they usually show it by putting the book down.