I've been neglecting the YA side a bit lately--sorry to my YA fans. My current WIP is a middle-grade, so that's what I'm reading, and busy with. I'm all about the MG these days.
And I thought I had it all worked out: YA is for high school kids, MG for the middle-schoolers. Simple, yes?
Well, no. As it turns out, many of my high school students are raving fans of MG series (which of course I'm not about to point out to them). In turn, some YA books turn out to be great for the middle-grade crowd. It's confusing me. I learned something new, now that I've crossed the line to MG: there is no clear line. There are aspects that make a book clearly MG or YA (usually sexual content), but otherwise...
Dunno. I would like to blame booksellers or publishers, but in this case, it's clearly the reader that makes up whether a book is MG or YA. There are no clear rules, it seems. Great for the reader in me, confusing for the writer.
On the upside: I'll keep reading until it all makes more sense.
How is that MG coming along? I think we need to get together for coffee and to catch up.
ReplyDeleteIt's coming along, still fun. I'll check when I can get away and hopefully you can too!
ReplyDeleteBy 12, both of my kids read strictly adult books, which I think had its good and bad sides. Megan read GONE WITH THE WIND in second grade. I was not a big book banner so I let it go. (She also read lots of kids books though).
ReplyDeleteNot sure if the books weren't there or if they'd already read them or if they thought it was cool to read adult books. I think they missed a lot of the more fantasy-oriented books this way.
I was the same way, mostly because there were no teen books when I grew up. Good point: maybe that's where my avoidance of fantasy stems from.
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