Bridging that age gap in the market

If you have kids (or if you have been a kid) between the ages of about 9-14, you may have experienced something like a crisis in the available reading materials. I've gone through it, my sisters have gone through it, and my little brother is currently going through it.

Here's the deal: there are advocates out there who are outraged--outraged--at the fact that parents are "censoring" what their teens are reading. The idea that some mother is telling her child that they aren't old enough to read a book yet? Or that maybe some parents are supervising what their 13-year-old kid (who is clearly a rational adult ready to make their own choices) might be reading? Outrage. How dare they. Apparently, once you get past Middle Grade reading (8-12), everything else on the children's and Young Adult market is fair game.

I call BS on that. And here's why:

CONTENT?

When kids start looking for more "advanced" books to read, they're generally not just searching for literature with big words that require a dictionary. Sure, there comes a point when I'm ready to move past Amelia Bedelia and challenge myself. And then there comes another point where I can only milk so much substance from Deltora Quest.

So you or your child moves from the Middle Grade market into the realm of Young Adult. And herein lies the issue: YA has become less of an age category, and more so a genre. I'm sure I've touched on this before in past blog posts, but there is obviously a trend: while MG might feature protagonists of any age, YA focuses almost exclusively on charactered aged 15-17; there is most always romance involved (love triangles, etc.); "coming of age" is apparently (regrettably) a theme throughout most YA books. This isn't an age category--this isn't a reading level. Young Adult is very much a genre. So in your quest to acquire more advanced literature, it's likely that you'll stumble into a pit of books that not only sport shared motifs, but also contain some questionable content.

A 10-year-old might be ready for something beyond the Magic Treehouse series. But I also wouldn't hand them The Hunger Games. That's the huge gap, right there: the terms MG an YA are so broad, you could go from reading The Borrowers to The Raven Boys, if you are choosing books based on what the industry marks as the target audience. That's a significant jump.

Young Adult novels typically feature more intense themes--darkness, romance, etc. You'll also encounter drinking, drugs, sex, possibly more skewed lines between good and evil, some pretty strong language. I'm not saying this content is problematic per se; if the audience is older, they can handle it and might even get something out of the more relatable, mature themes. The problem is that the YA market caters to children aged 13-17 (roughly). That's a significant maturity gap. Parents and even children need to know that, just because a book is marketed towards 13-year-olds, doesn't mean they're ready for it.

This is why we started the blog, so we could divide books into more reasonable categories based on maturity and reading level.

QUALITY?

Another point: is the quality/reading level of YA really an improvement upon MG? In my experience, no. Not necessarily. Sure, the YA novel might be chock-full of mature content intended for older readers, but that doesn't mean the prose is any good--that doesn't mean you'll find deep themes, developed characters, stellar world-building, or even a halfway-decent plot.

I've read YA novels, and I've read MG. Most of my favorite books are actually Middle Grade novels, because there are some authors who don't "dumb down" their writing for the younger audience, but also don't sport the tired-out themes found in a YA novel. Trenton Lee Stewart (The Mysterious Benedict Society) comes to mind, as does N.D. Wilson, Jeanne Birdsall, Cressida Cowell, and Cornelia Funke.

Not to say that all YA is garbage--it can be done, and it can be done in a way that actually breaks through the walls of what the genre has become (Six of Crows, Ender's Game, The Book Thief). And not to say that all Middle Grade fiction is superior--there are absolutely authors that succumb to the "it's for younger readers, so it doesn't have to be good literature" mindset. But the Young Adult market is flooded. It makes sense to me, then, why so many mediocre books are able to slip through the cracks.

In sum: just because your kid is ready for more advanced literature, does not necessarily mean that YA is the next step. Even if you're willing to deal with the more mature content, you might not even find superior literature in the YA category.

Great literature cannot be contained by age brackets.

SO...WHAT DO WE DO?

Like I said, I've gone through this for myself. Being homeschooled means that my siblings and I had a lot of time to read, so we really got ahead: our reading abilities were far beyond our ability to digest mature content. From the age of eleven and onward, I either dragged myself through dumbed-down Middle Grade, or stumbled through Young Adult novels that were 1) probably not entirely appropriate for someone so young (The Host, Reckless, Divergent, Speaker for the Dead) and 2) probably not much of an improvement on my Middle Grade novels, as far as quality is concerned.

So, what's the answer? You can't keep dragging yourself and your child through books that don't challenge them--it would stunt their reading advancement, they'd get bored, and they might eventually decide that they don't like reading altogether.

It might seem obvious, but, again--this is why we made the blog, to help resolve some of these issues for our Catholic, homeschooled friends and their children. But you don't have to take us at our word! As I've said before, the best way to turn your kids into readers is to read books. Read them on your own time. Read them aloud to your child. Read books that you think your child might enjoy, and read them to make sure they're appropriate for your child's individual location on their literary journey.

There are books that bridge this gap in the children's literature market. Check out our YA book lists. There are MG books that both teens and adults can enjoy, and there are YA novels that are perfectly suitable for older MG readers.

My brother read Ender's Game when he was 12-years-old (and he's reread it twice since then). He's read Eragon and The Hunger Games and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I would generally recommend those books for slightly older children, but that's where he is on his personal reading journey and maturity level. You or your child might be at a different point.

Some of my favorite books are Middle Grade series. I will continue rereading Gregor the Overlander, 100 Cupboards, The Legend of Sam Miracle, and The Penderwicks. Every time I read these books, I take away something different and new. They transcend the arbitrary age categories the market imposes upon them.

Read smart. You have a right--and actually an obligation--to protect your child's innocence and make sure they're not reading literature beyond their personal maturity level.

Cheers.

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Also, not that this is a pitch or anything, but this is actually one of the main reasons I wrote THE TIME WALKER. I was tired of reading MG with low expectations of the reader, and I was really tired of dragging myself through the typical YA tropes. Like romance: I hate writing romance. I wanted to write the thing that I wanted to read, and that just so happened to be a fantasy time-travel pirate adventure.

So the novel-in-progress (it's finished, but I'm working on querying literary agents at this very moment!) would actually be aimed towards readers aged 12+, probably. That technically makes it YA (although...again...YA is more of a genre). I would just as soon hand it to a Middle Grade reader.

Anyway. Have a good week, folks.