Ask a room full of publishing professionals what makes a
novel middle grade, and you’ll get as many different answers as there are
people in the room. So how can an author determine whether their manuscript (or
shiny new story idea) is suited for middle grade shelves? One might be tempted to examine the audience in an
effort to answer this question, but readers of MG range from young advanced readers
(think six and seven year olds) all the way up through adults. In order to get
to the bottom of this dilemma, we need to turn to the material itself. Let’s
start by examining some of the parameters commonly associated with middle grade
books.
Some claim a novel can be defined as middle grade if the protagonist
is roughly eight to twelve years old. This is a terrific jumping off point, but
the reality of writing novels is seldom that straightforward and it doesn’t
address the murky middle ground of thirteen and fourteen year olds, who often
don’t fit neatly into MG or YA. In a blog
post, author Diane K. Salerni reveals that the publisher of The
Eighth Day asked her to lower her protagonist’s age from 14 to 13 to better
suit the middle grade market. Another example of the problematic nature of
relying strictly on age comes from Gary D. Schmidt’s Orbiting
Jupiter. The twelve-year-old protagonist should, in theory, anchor the
story firmly in middle grade territory. However, another main character is a fourteen-year-old eighth grader, who is already a father. In an author interview posted on the publisher's website, the book is labeled young adult.
Clearly, we need to
look beyond age––we also need to consider
subject matter and themes. For example, does including the birds and the bees
automatically mean the story can’t be MG? Including explicitly sexual material is
definitely a sign that the novel isn’t destined for middle grade shelves, but
this is not to say that romance can’t appear in middle grade stories or that edgy
material (or the lack thereof) defines MG novels. Books such as Nest,
Bridge
to Terabithia, Wish
Girl, and Paper
Cowboy all demonstrate that topics such as suicide, death, terminal illness
and depression/mental illness are fair game.
Sometimes writers are tempted to look at point of view and language/writing
style to help determine the audience for their novels. Many middle grade novels
are written from a single point of view and contain relatively straightforward
language. But by now it won’t surprise you to hear that this isn’t always the
case. Wonder
has six separate POVs. Echo
is another great example of multiple POVs within one novel. And one must only
compare The
One and Only Ivan to The
Thing About Jellyfish to see that it’s neither language nor writing style
that defines middle grade novels. Nor can one point to factors such as external
(versus internal) plots, genre, or word count. Although these are all important
considerations, a few moments in a bookstore demonstrates that middle grade
novels are every bit as complex and versatile as the audience that reads them.
If you’ve made it this far and still aren’t exactly sure
whether your story is middle grade or not, let me leave you with this final bit
of advice: the only way to truly understand the middle grade market is to read
middle grade books. Although every story is different, if you read enough of
them, you’ll develop an intuition that, together with a close examination of
the elements discussed above, will help you determine exactly whether or not
your story fits into the ambiguous yet beloved category known as middle grade.
Happy reading!
P.S. What are your favorite MG
novels? Please share in the comments below!
P.P.S. Want more information on this
topic? Here are a few links to check out:
*
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/the-key-differences-between-middle-grade-vs-young-adult
* http://kidlit.com/2010/11/20/is-it-mg-or-ya/
