Click over to The Enchanted Inkpot fantasy writers blog, where I'm hosting a discussion about the no man's land of books for older MG or younger YA, AKA tweens.Are publishers more uncomfortable with books in this age range than readers are? See what you think, and feel free to chime in with a comment!
5 comments:
I think that the distinction is publisher driven. Books used to have reading levels (i.e. RL 5.1...5th grade, 1st month), but most children's books are published without these. Now, they use the other somewhat artificial levels. I've watched kids in school pick books off library shelves. Many flip through to look for pictures, size of print, and number of pages. Those who read prolificly look for authors, plot lines, genres, etc. They choose books by word of mouth, too. They are not concerned about the MG or YA designation.
I'm going to feature a link to this discussion on Book Blogs' forum! It will be interesting to see what this community has to say!
Here's the Book Blog link:
http://bookblogs.ning.com/forum/topics/what-do-you-think-about-the-mg
Thanks, Kathy, and good point about how kids choose books--it's certainly not one size fits all!
I read that blog and put my two cents in there. I love MG books. Love, love, love them! My niece, who will be 17 soon, still has some MG favorites (i.e., E.D. Baker) whom she returns to. The YA category is getting to be a bit narrow.
Lin--Thanks for participating! Aren't MG books wonderful? And it does seem like there is such great variety in MG fiction in contrast to YA right now. I like the way you put it, that YA has gotten "a bit narrow."
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