ON BEHALF OF LATE BLOOMERS by Mary E. Cronin

As the newest member of the Project Mayhem team, I confess I have a soft spot for late bloomers. I was a late bloomer myself (I may still qualify for the term, as I entered an MFA program at age 48!), and I love late-blooming characters. How do I define late bloomers? Late bloomers are not champing at the bit, pushing the envelope, or trying to act older than they are. They are content to act their age (and may even act a bit younger), and they are not in a rush to get to the next developmental stage.

Here are some great examples of late bloomers in recent middle-grade fiction:

• ·      In Kwame Alexander’s award winning verse novel The Crossover (2015 Newbery Medal winner and Coretta Scott King Honor book), twin brothers Joshua and Jordan Bell are excellent basketball players. Josh feels forsaken as his twin embarks on a first romance, and he frets as the family feels the stress of his father’s deteriorating health. Josh’s feeling of being left behind is captured beautifully in “Second-Person”— “After practice, you walk home alone./This feels strange to you, because/as long as you can remember/there has always been a second person.”

• ·      In Rebecca Stead’s Goodbye Stranger, seventh-grader Bridge is a fragile yet resilient character who suffered life-threatening injuries in an accident when she was younger and was out of school for almost a year due to her recuperation. This figures into her late-bloomer status as she missed out on some milestones in schooling. She dons her cat ear headband in the very beginning of the book: “…the ears became a comforting presence. When she was small, her father would sometimes rest his hand on her head as they went down the street. It was a little bit like that.” Bridge struggles with the social pressures of middle school that test the bonds of friendship with her two best friends, and she has some approach/avoidance feelings about a friendship with a boy that might turn into something more.

• ·      In Tim Federle’s Better Nate Than Ever, 13-year-old Nate, an aspiring actor with a love of show tunes, often gets teased for being gay. Yet he declares, “My sexuality, by the way, is off-topic and unrelated. I am undecided. I am a freshman at the College of Sexuality and I have undecided by major, and frankly I don’t want to declare anything other than ‘Hey jerks, I’m thirteen, leave me alone. Macaroni and cheese is still my favorite food—how would I know who I want to hook up with?’” Nate is firmly staking out his claim that he is not yet ready to deal with sexuality and courtship…which may shift a bit by the end of the story.

As adults who write for and about middle-graders, there is much to consider and respect in the unfolding process of a late bloomer’s development—social, emotional, and physical. By capturing the micro-steps of that unfolding, we can create rich and textured characters that go beyond the popular cliché of the snarky or wisecracking middle-grader who is in a rush to grow up.

There are rich possibilities for conflict in creating a late blooming character:

·      **The awkwardness sparked by delayed puberty, when peers are physically changing and your character is not. (Bridge in Goodbye Stranger is a great example of this.)

**Peers are beginning to pursue courtship, while late bloomers may have ambivalence about this. (The Crossover, Goodbye Stranger, Better Nate Than Ever)

**Late bloomers may resist scripted social situations like dances, Valentines Day, group chats.

**Many late bloomers feel mystified and/or lonely when siblings/friends begin interacting socially in more complicated ways (romantic or otherwise)  (The Crossover and Goodbye Stranger). There can be loss of friendship or feelings of closeness with peers when developmental paths are diverging.

**Late bloomers may not be yet venturing into snarkiness or boundary-testing; they may gravitate more towards home, safety, and rules as their peers are beginning to chafe against those things. (The Crossover and Goodbye Stranger) Late bloomers tend to be rule followers—rich territory for conflict.

**The primacy of family is important to late bloomers and provides an anchor, even as peer influences become more important to most middle-graders. (Josh’s loyalty to his parents in The Crossover is a good example)

**Late bloomers may have a rich inner life/observer status, but they may not always be able to comprehend or analyze what they are seeing; in some cases the reader may know more than the character does.  (Goodbye Stranger, The Crossover, Better Nate Than Ever)

 **Late bloomers may still crave “play” while peers are moving on to other ways of forming social relationships. (wearing the cat ears, the role of basketball, drawing doodles on school work) They may gravitate toward others late bloomers or younger siblings/friends, which can be a comfort or a source of awkwardness.

**The analytical skills of late bloomers are still developing, which might show itself in academic work, social relationships, or problem solving. (Better Nate Than Ever, The Crossover, Goodbye Stranger)

In our hurried world, I believe it’s important to capture the experience of the late-blooming kid in all its micro-steps. This profile transcends race, culture and socio-economics. Many of our avid middle-grade readers fit this description, and writing a nuanced portrayal of their experience will offer a rewarding mirror to them.  Even if our characters are ambivalent about some of the milestones of growing up, there are rich possibilities for complexity and conflict in their meandering yet inexorable path to maturity.

Do you have a favorite example of a late-blooming character in middle-grade fiction? Add it to the comments!