![]() “Young adult is aimed at readers 12 to 18 (and up), which is a wide developmental range. Romance in MG will tend more toward the ‘puppy love’ phase than full-on dating. It is generally shorter than YA (though that can vary with SFF) to account for younger children’s shorter attention spans, and though it doesn’t necessarily shy away from tough subjects, it generally avoids the graphic depiction of them. “Middle grade is for children ages 8 to 12. Le Guin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, and more. One of Tu’s most recent titles is Diverse Energies, an anthology of dystopian science fiction edited by Joe Monti and SFWA member Tobias Buckell, which features short stories by SFWA members Ursula K. Stacy Whitman is Editorial Director of Tu Books, a publisher that specializes in fantasy and science fiction with diverse characters and settings. ![]() I say ‘core audience’ because readers of all ages enjoy these books, but the writing has to speak to kids and/or teens first.” The core audience for middle grade is 8 to 12-year-olds, and young adult is 12 to 18. “‘Middle grade’ and ‘young adult’ describe audiences, not genres, because a tremendous variety of books fall in each category. While she was at Disney-Hyperion, she edited SFWA member Cinda Williams Chima’s bestselling The Gray Wolf Throne and The Crimson Crown. ![]() Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule!”Ībigail Ranger is Senior Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books. Think first person perspective and lots of use of the word ‘I’. On the other hand, YA is often much more introspective, and the protagonist exerts their influence on the events in the novel. Think books like Percy Jackson and Skulduggery Pleasant. The protagonist reacts to external situations and events, which leads to adventurous stories, and there is little time spent in the characters’ heads. “Middle grade is very much about the external, in my opinion. Their launch list includes Blackwood by Gwenda Bond, which was recently put into development at MTV. YA and middle grade books should speak to their respective target audience, with an accessible voice that truly speaks to the reader and doesn’t talk down to them.”Īmanda Rutter is an Editor at Strange Chemistry, the newly launched global YA imprint of UK-based Angry Robot Books. The best kind of books leave room for crossover to an older, or sometimes slightly younger, audience. “I think that these definitions are fairly simple: middle grade books feature pre-teen characters in situations of interest to 8-12 year olds, and YA novels feature teen protagonists in situations of interest to teen readers. Lisa Yoskowitz is an Editor at Disney-Hyperion Books, where she edits SFWA member Cinda Williams Chima‘s novels. ![]() But adult readership of young adult fiction can be as high as 40% for the most popular titles, but generally makes up 20%-25%.” My experience, particularly as a retailer cautions that these are soft and it’s closer to 7-11 and 11-17. “The publishing guidelines are traditionally for readers from ages 8-12 for middle grade and 12 & up for YA. His clients include SFWA members Jenn Reese ( Above World) and William Alexander (the recent National Book Award-winning Goblin Secrets). Joe Monti is a literary agent with the Barry Goldblatt Literary Agency. How do you define “middle grade” and “young adult”? In subsequent posts, we’ll tackle the thorny issue of potentially controversial content (what’s permitted and what’s not), and give you recommendations of MG and YA books you can read to get up to speed on the market today. We’ve surveyed our editors and agents to ask them how they define MG and YA, and in this post we’re sharing their thoughts with you. Who are “we”? We’re members of SFWA’s newest experiment, a special interest group focusing on SFWA members who write MG and YA sci-fi and fantasy. To help writers figure out what makes a middle grade a middle grade, and what makes a young adult a young adult, we’ve put together this post to outline the basics. Science fiction and fantasy, after all, has a long tradition of featuring young protagonists - including such classics as Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings, and Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey - even if those novels weren’t originally published as middle grade or young adult books.īut these days, following the successes of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, middle grade and young adult publishing is a thriving category in its own right, with sci-fi and fantasy one of the most popular genres within MG and YA. An Introduction to Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction, Part 1: Definitionsįor writers who are interested in writing middle grade or young adult fantasy or science fiction, the first step is puzzling out what exactly those categories mean.
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