In December I aired my Festivus grievance against the lack of really good, engaging, and developmentally appropriate books for toddlers, particularly those that would be good for group read-alouds, i.e. toddler storytime. But that is not my only frustration with kid-lit. In the last year I have come to realize how challenging it is to find *new* middle-grade fiction for the younger end of middle-grade after a restructuring changed my collection development focus from birth through teen to birth through age 11, and expanded the teen department to include upper middle-grade, which used to be included in the juvenile collection.
That has left me with quite the conundrum. "Middle Grade" is generally considered ages 8-12 (though that range varies depending on who you ask, and many erroneously conflate "middle grade" to mean "middle school"), and this re-structuring resulted in middle-grade being split between two locations and two selectors. As I shifted my focus to the younger end of middle-grade and tried to search out books that were for elementary ages and had protagonists that were closer to 10, I had a really hard time finding anything beyond beginner/transitional chapter books and graphic novels/comics.
Apparently, there is an unwritten rule that middle-grade protagonists must be 12 years old and in 7th grade. I really didn't realize just how consistent it was until I began purposefully looking for books for the younger end with younger protagonists. Lists of hot and upcoming middle-grade books are predominantly for the older end of the range, almost always with 12-year old characters and frequently featuring subjects and situations that are a little mature or complex for elementary kids. Using the "ages 9-11" audience filter on the vendor site yields, once again, books with 12 year-old protagonists and often more mature/complex subject matter, but when I use the "ages 8-9" filter, I generally get few results and more of the really short, highly illustrated transitional and beginning chapter books, and even still get books more for middle schoolers.
Of course I know kids generally like to read about kids slightly older than themselves, but can an 8 year old in 3rd grade *really* relate that well to a 12-year old seventh-grader dealing with all the angst of changing friendships, peer pressure, and budding romances of middle school? That's a big difference in development and life experience. And while there are books with 12-year old characters that are clearly written for a younger audience, they can often be difficult to find and identify. I feel like it shouldn't be so hard to find "meatier" MG fiction, something beyond transitional/beginner chapter books, that is truly written for the younger middle grade audience of strong readers.
It hasn't always been that way, has it? I can think of a number of great middle-grade classics, many of which are still popular, that are for the younger end of the MG range. Beverly Cleary's Ramona series follows Ramona from age 5 to age 10, Henry Huggins ranges from age 8-11, and Keith is 8 years old at the beginning of The Mouse and the Motorcycle series. Fern in E. B. White's Charlotte's Web is also eight, and Peter from Judy Blume's Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is 9, while Margaret from If You're There, God... is 11. Dorothy's age is never explicitly stated in The Wizard of Oz series, but can be extrapolated from comparison to another character to be 11.
While there are some more contemporary middle-grade fiction books for younger readers, they seem to be few and far between and often have non-human main characters. Some that come to mind are A Boy Called Bat by Elana Arnold, Katherine Applegate's The One and Only... series, Odder, Dogtown, and Crenshaw; and Peter Brown's The Wild Robot series. Gordan Korman's books typically have older characters, but appeal to a younger audience, as do series like The Last Kids on Earth, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Dork Diaries. I know there are others I'm forgetting, but I could easily throw out dozens of titles and series for the top end of MG fiction without have to think too hard or browse the collection.
So, what's going on? I can only speculate, but I'm sure part of it is that I just haven't figured out the best way to find what I'm looking for. I also think part of it is that previously there were not enough transitional and beginning chapter books, and to meet that demand the focus shifted from publishing short novels for the younger end of middle grade to the much shorter, highly illustrated transitional books. In addition, the rapid rise in popularity of graphic novels combined with parents and teachers becoming more accepting of this format further shifted focus away from prose to graphic formats. And finally, I suspect that publishers know kids are more likely to read about characters older than themselves than younger, and therefore decided to set the age of all middle-grade characters at the top end of the age range, figuring younger readers would still read about 12-year olds, but the 12-year olds aren't going to read about a 10 year old.
Has anyone else found selecting new fiction that is not graphic novels or transitional books for older elementary kids to be a challenge, or is it just me? Know of any great books to fill this niche that have been published in the last year, or will be published this year?
