"GRAY AREA" STORIES: NOVELS FOR OLDER MIDDLE SCHOOL READERS by Laurie Morrison

This week, I'm so delighted to welcome my friend Laurie Morrison to Project Mayhem. She's a fellow member of the Electric 18's and will debut with EVERY SHINY THING, co-written with Cordelia Jensen. Recently, her solo MG debut was announced and it sounds AMAZING!! I invited her to talk about why she wrote the book.

The Importance of “Gray Area” Stories: Middle Grade Novels for Older Middle School Readers

By Laurie Morrison

This week, I got to share the exciting news that my new novel, Up for Air, will be published by Abrams/Amulet in spring 2019. Up for Air is about thirteen-year-old Annabelle, a star swimmer and struggling student, who is thrilled when she gets called up to the high school summer team and has a chance to shine. But when she attracts the attention of an older boy and finds herself alienated from her closest friends, she has to figure out what her true strengths are and where she really fits.

One of the reasons I am most excited about this novel is also the reason I was worried, for a while, that it might be tough to sell. You see, it’s an upper middle grade book that delves into some topics that middle grade novels don’t often address: a pretty intense crush on an older boy, the thrill of having a new kind of body that attracts a new kind of attention, and the temptations and pressures that come along with having older friends.

I started writing Up for Air three years ago, but I abandoned it a few times along the way because I was concerned that it might fall into the unmarketable gray area between middle grade and young adult fiction. In the meantime, one of the projects I worked on was Every Shiny Thing, a book I wrote with my friend Cordelia Jensen, which will be published next spring. Every Shiny Thing is also upper middle grade, and it tackles some pretty heavy topics, but I didn’t worry about that one’s marketability in the same way. I think that’s because I’ve rarely heard anyone say that middle grade novels shouldn’t deal with hard, sad topics; that seems to be okay, but certain language and certain kinds of crushes and romances are a no-go, many people think.

In the end, though, I couldn’t let go of Annabelle’s story. It was a story I had to tell, in part because of my own memories of middle school and the books I loved back then, and in part because of my work with middle school students. I’ve taught middle school English for the past ten years, and most of the 7th and 8th graders I know, and even many 6th graders, read more young adult books than middle grade ones because middle grade books feel too young to them. And yes, kids like to “read up” about characters who are older than they are, and that’s great. But there’s also something powerful and validating about having books that are closer to what they’re currently going through. Because what does it tell them about the experiences they are having right now if they can’t find any books that delve into those kinds of experiences in all their giddy, painful, glorious messiness? 

One of my favorite books that is boldly situated in the upper middle grade gray area is Rebecca Stead’s Goodbye Stranger. Stead’s novel does not shy away from “untouchable” middle grade topics; it explores a girl’s experience of coming into her sexuality and deals with the topic of slut shaming. I read the novel aloud to a class of seventh graders a couple of years ago, and the students’ enthusiasm and impassioned discussions validated my belief in the importance of gray area stories and sparked my hope that there might be room for more of these books in the market after all.

I know, I know. Rebecca Stead is Rebecca Stead, and she’s earned the right to break some rules. But I think we’re seeing more and more of what my agent calls “age 10 and up” middle grade these days: more books that feature crushes, body image, and peer pressure, and maybe even characters who are fourteen, an age that has often been considered off limits, as Dianne Salerni posted about on Project Mayhem in the past. Here are a few recently published books that appeal to the older end of the middle school crowd.

Where You’ll Find Me by Natasha Friend

In Friend’s most recent middle grade book, thirteen-year-old Anna moves in with her dad and his new family as her mother recovers from a suicide attempt, and she finds herself stuck at the misfit lunch table after her former best friend dumps her. I ran a book group for 5th-8th grade girls who had read this book, and it was a hit with all of them. It’s more about family and friend dynamics than any kind of crush or romance, but, as one of the younger readers in my book group gleefully pointed out, there is some occasional “bad language” that doesn’t commonly appear in MG books but feels true to life, and the eighth graders in the group agreed that they felt like they were reading about an actual eighth grader, not reading about a character who is supposed to be in eighth grade but seems younger.

Well, That Was Awkward by Rachel Vail

This funny retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is about eighth grader Gracie, who falls for a boy named A.J., who likes Gracie’s best friend, Sienna. Gracie helps the flustered Sienna figure out how to handle her interactions with A.J. and ends up posing as Sienna over text. This is a delightful romantic comedy that captures the awkwardness and excitement and sort of crowd-sourced dynamic of adolescent relationships, and it delves into some rich family dynamics, as well. Plus, Gracie turns fourteen in the course of the story!

Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes by Mary E. Lambert

Annabelle refuses to let any of her friends come within five miles of her house because her mom is a hoarder. This funny, poignant novel is about the summer her dad takes off and her grandmother jumps in to try to fix the family’s problems. There’s a sweet storyline with the boy Annabelle likes, and Annabelle’s spot-on upper middle grade humor will make her story appeal to older middle school readers and younger ones alike. (Also, apparently there is something about the names Anna and Annabelle that scream upper middle grade for some reason!)

I’d love to know about any other upper middle grade novels you love that would appeal to older middle school students and that might break some of the commonly accepted “rules” for middle grade, especially if you know of any diverse, own voices books that I can add to my list!

Laurie writes books for kids and teens, reads voraciously, and teaches middle school English. When she's not writing, reading, or teaching, you can often find her taking long walks even when it's cold or rainy, making fancy pizza, or cheering on an odd blend of New York sports teams she grew up rooting for and Philadelphia teams she's adopted since settling in Philadelphia. She loves iced coffee, just-out-of-the-oven pastries, the ocean, and TV shows that make her laugh or gasp out loud. 

You can find Laurie on her website: lauriemorrisonwrites.com or on Twitter at @LaurieLMorrison.

I'm Still Wild About Harry by Jim Hill

A little over three weeks ago my son turned nine, and, as promised (more on this to come), we began our family read-a-loud of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Two nights ago we finished.

I loved every minute of it.

That’s probably not a shock after all this is a blog for middle-grade writers (and readers – can’t be one without the other), and HP is the epicenter of the twenty-first-century kid lit phenomenon. Among the kidliterati, it is expected that you’ve read the series at least once. You may have waited in line for midnight book releases. Maybe even dressed up as Harry Potter for Halloween (the Boy Who Lived… to Middle Age!). Or freaked out when the Sorting Hat named you a Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor. (I claim Gryffinpuff or Huffledor–who’s with me?)

What I loved most about this read through was sharing it with my family, and experiencing the story through the eyes of my son. You see, we made him wait to read the story, and see the movies (books first always). It’s not that he hasn’t asked. Or, you know, begged. It’s that we wanted him to be ready for it. Not just as a reader, but as a person. We wanted him to appreciate the emotional arcs as much as the action and humor. Sometimes it must suck having a writer for a parent.

As a reader, he could’ve sailed through it in second grade. He’s read a ton of the 39 Clues series, several Fablehavens, the entire Wings of Fire series, and all of Amulet. The boy’s a reader, through and through. As a family, we’ve read lengthy series – The Cold Cereal Saga by Adam Rex, the Wondla series by Tony Deterlizzi, and The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates series by Caroline Carson – that have taken months and had complex storylines with a large cast of characters and deep worldbuilding.

And still, we said no to Harry.

No books.
No movies.
No spoilers.*

This is no easy task in a world where HP is a cultural touchstone and a marketing phenomenon. We did cave (a little) to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and he has the game of it on his iPad. Still, that’s a parallel story, not actual-Harry-Potter.

It was worth it. As a fancy-pants writer with a grad degree in Writing for Children and hundreds of children’s books consumed, it’s too easy to get caught up in the mechanics of any story and miss the hypnotic escapism inherent to the best of them. Hearing the gasps, giggles, and shrieks of this enraptured, enthusiastic kid stripped the analysis out of my head and allowed me to live this story from the child’s perspective.

It was glorious.

Tonight we’ll watch the movie.

Tomorrow we’ll start The Chamber of Secrets.

My Favorite Harry Potter Joke

Q: How did Harry Potter get down the hill?
A: Walking. JK Rowling.


* Okay, very few spoilers. He caught about twenty minutes of the movie at a friend’s house. Much to our horror.

Reading and Writing Should Be Dangerous, and other things Stephen King said

Few things compare to the feeling of meeting a person we admire, and last Friday I had the chance to attend an event in Stephen King’s END OF WATCH national tour. I purchased tickets months in advance, and when I arrived to the venue hours before the event, the line already snaked around the building. That day temperatures hit the 90s for the first time of the summer, but I was undeterred. Melting under the scorching sun, I spoke with friends and strangers about when we’d discovered King’s books. His books hardly qualify as middle grade or young adult (with the exception of CARRIE, which in my opinion is fully YA), but the vast majority of us, his fans, confessed to finding his words in our tween and early teen years, 

Although I arrived early, I was still kind of far from the stage.  

 Growing up, I never chose books according to grade-reading level. I read whatever was available. The newspaper. Nutritional information behind the saltbox. I read even graffiti-ed poems on the front of the building where I lived.

 A novel was a special kind of treasure, but I knew even at a young age what I was ready to read then, and what could wait.

 Sometime in tenth grade, I read my first Stephen King: DIFFERENT SEASONS, a collection of novellas among which is Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption. I read it in Spanish, and although I know so many things are lost in translation, King’s trademark voice and mood stayed with me forever. When I read it again in college (this time in English), once again I fell into the reading trance I crave and that I look for in every book I read.

      Friday night in Salt Lake, King said that the Stephen in front of the audience wasn’t the one readers probably expected to find. Scary Stephen/Writer Stephen stays at home, waiting for Popular Stephen/Book-touring Stephen to return to the page for a new work-in-progress. He claims he hardly knows what goes on in Scary/Writer Stephen’s mind when creating a story, but that he knows that Writer Stephen has two things in mind when creating his worlds: verisimilitude and a character the reader will care about and follow to the end of the story.

 An author achieves verisimilitude when the story contains vivid, specific details that bring the world to life. A successful character needs to want something and yearn to achieve it, and the reader should identify with the wanting so much, she will not put the book down until she knows how the story ends. The reader should see a part of herself in the story.

 Maybe that’s why when I was younger I intuitively knew what things I was ready to read then, and what I should leave for later in life. That’s why even now sometimes I don’t connect with the character of a highly acclaimed book, but a few months from now, or even years, that book becomes one of my favorite ones ever (hello, Melina Marchetta’s JELLICOE ROAD). For every book, there's a time and a season, don't you think?

I’m currently in my final year of a MFA program at the Vermont College of FineArts, and I’ve been writing for a long time, so the advice to both write believable worlds and creating characters with a strong desire line was familiar to me. But the statement that struck me the most was when King said that reading should always be dangerous.

    I’ve been pondering on those words this weekend.

    Reading, everything and anything, changes me in some way, even if small, and that’s what makes it magical. It doesn’t mean that I, or any of us for that matter, should only read literary horror or edgy books. It means that we should be aware that everything we read leaves a mark upon us. Stephen King doesn’t throw those words—“reading should be dangerous”—in vain. Besides being a super-prolific writer, he’s a voracious reader, and has reviewed HARRY POTTER, TWILIGHT, and even FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY. As with writing, he knows what he’s talking about when he talks about reading.

     We read dangerously when we read outside of our comfort zone, about experiences vastly different from ours, in formats that we haven’t tried before.

For children, who are experiencing the world for the first time, reading is always a dangerous endeavor, so dangerous that sometimes well-meaning adults prevent them from reading books that are sorely needed, like Kate Messner’s THE SEVENTH WISH, Walter Dean Myer’s MONSTER, Sherman Alexie’s THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN, or Judy Blume’s ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.

     King’s words inspire me to write dangerously too, to try formats and genres that I haven’t tried before, experiences and situations that make me curious, excited, or even afraid.

     This summer, I pledge to read and write dangerously:

I’m stretching myself to read more non-fiction and graphic novels. I’ll even dive into some “adult” books (gasp!).

With my son, 15, who's eager for his first Stephen King
 and a summer of reading dangerously

I’m double-dog daring myself to write the draft of that picture book I’ve been fantasizing with for months.

I’m challenging myself to write more poetry, even if it’s amateurish and still such a mystery to me.

I’m bribing myself with chocolate and a binge-watch-worthy show on Netflix if I finish revising the middle grade that’s been very hard emotionally for me and send it to my agent once and for all.

Tell me friend, how will you read and write more dangerously this summer?

            

The Darkness of Nursery Tales by Kell Andrews

The other day my family and I was listening to an audiobook during a car ride -- a middle-grade fantasy that retells a Grimm fairy tale. And of course, the princess's father died right in the beginning.

My husband complained -- he's tired of all the dead parents of children's literature. I defended the plot because that's how stories work. Happy lives make dull books. The main character has to act on her own. She must suffer before she triumphs. She must face conflict.

Still, like my husband, I have tried to shelter my children from some literary losses -- we haven't read Charlotte's Web or The Bridge to Terabithia. We never watched Bambi. We haven't read the gruesomest Grimm tales that fascinated me as a child -- the murdered stepson served as stew, the barrel studded inside with nails.

I remember my daughter flipping through my copy of Sing-Song, A Nursery Rhyme Book by Christina Rossetti. She was attracted by the little girl on the cover cavorting with a lamb, one of the gorgeous original illustrations by Arthur Hughes, the Pre-Raphaelite whose illustrations for George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.

Many of the poems in Sing-Song cover familiar childhood experiences, including many sweet, touching, and funny subjects. But the poems often take a dark turn, familiar to Victorians for whom the living and dead existed side by side.

For example, a poem about a bird:

A sweet poem about sisters that takes a dark turn:

A bedtime poem from which there is no waking:

Children's literature has always dealt with death -- fairy tales are notoriously grisly in their original versions, and the origins of many nursery rhymes is similarly macabre. And Victorian childhood has always been a risky world, where infant and maternal mortality was an ever present risk. Literature for children reflected that then, just as it reflects the darker side of our world now. Children still face risk even when we try to protect them.

I don't like torturing my beloved characters, but for readers, these kinds of stories are better than life lessons.  Encountering loss between the covers of a book is far better than in real life.

Recently, I warned my daughter against Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but she read it anyway and was sorry by the end. But that's how losses happen, in books as well as life. You don't know they will happen until they do.

And when real loss happens, a book offers solace. Others have felt as you do. Others have survived. And so will you.

Appropriate/Inappropriate in Middle-Grade Fiction by Kell Andrews

Books for children are the ones most likely to be challenged based on content. If parents are to decide for their children which books are appropriate, that means that "inappropriate" books can and should be published so all parents have that choice.

A few days ago my 10-year-old showed me the book she was reading. She was nervous because it included a bad word.

The word was hell. The book was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead -- a book that I had read and found moving and challenging. I thought it might be difficult reading, but I had never thought it was too edgy.

So I told my daughter not to worry. Lots of books have so-called bad words in them. It doesn't make them bad books or not OK for her to read. The author was trying to show the way the world is, and sometimes people use those words. That doesn't mean that my daughter should use those words herself, but she shouldn't be afraid to read them.

A few days after my daughter and I talked about When You Reach Me,  Clean Reader -- an application that removes proscribed words from ebooks -- created a controversy.

I reject the term "clean reading" on the face of it. Children have experiences that aren't deemed "age appropriate" in books, but that happen in their real lives. If we say the books that describe those events and experiences aren't clean, that's what we're saying about the children who live them. So it's not a term I will ever use.

Stead's book won a Newbery Award, but otherwise (and maybe even so) there are libraries and teachers that wouldn't acquire and use it with their students because the presence of that word. That is their choice -- there are millions of books out there, and every librarian, teacher, parent, and reader is free to choose among them for any reason they wish. 

The word in my daughter's book made her nervous. Some parents might think that means it's not all right for a child to read. But I'm glad she read it, and glad she came to me to talk about it. A word in a book isn't going to hurt my child. If it makes her nervous, a book gives her a safe way to deal with it. It's not the first time she's heard it, it won't be the last, and it won't be the worst. She can hear a bad word -- even say it or do something wrong -- and not be a bad person.

My speech patterns have always been PG. You could count on one hand the times in my life I have said out loud a word that couldn't be said on prime time TV. And yet sometimes my characters use much stronger language than I do, and they certainly do things I wouldn't do. In an unpublished middle grade manuscript of mine, an antagonist says something very vivid and nasty to my main character. But he is a thug and a murderer! He isn't going to sound like Mary Poppins. (This particular bit of dialogue, while something I wouldn't say, is one of the lines I'm most proud of in the book. Maybe I'm proud of it because I wouldn't say it.)

Most of the discussion around Clean Reader revolves around adult books, but adult books are not the ones that are most likely to be restricted based on content -- kids' books are. And it's fine for parents to be able to decide what's "appropriate" in a book for their child. And that means that the books that one parent finds "inappropriate" must be available so that other parents can choose, based on their own judgment.

Clean Reader is not something I would use for myself or my child, but if it allows other kids to enjoy When You Reach Me when it would otherwise be forbidden, that's not all bad. It's not all good either, but it's better than publishers, bookstores, or book clubs editing out content before publication or refusing to publish or distribute them. The original text is not affected by Clean Reader. But in middle-grade fiction, preemptive censorship happens all the time, and it impacts all readers. It reduces the quality, variety, and truth of books published for young people. It means that many children cannot read about the reality of their own lives.

When the time comes that one of my children picks up a mature work, I'm not sure yet how or if I will choose to restrict their reading materials.

But the other day, I told my daughter that she will read about all kinds of things she wouldn't do or say. She will read about things that have actually happened but shouldn't have, and about things that should never, ever happen. When she's uncomfortable with the content of a book or doesn't understand it, bring it to me, and we'll talk about it.

Or close the covers. I do it all the time. Every book is not for every reader, and I can't decide for others what is appropriate. I can only decide for my children and teach them to decide for themselves.

More
Appropriate Literature: Elana K Arnold on Stacked.com

My 2015 Caldecott Quandary by Jim Hill

It has been a fantastic, groundbreaking awards season for graphic novels. El Deafo was named a Newbery Honor, and This One Summer earned both a Printz Honor and a Caldecott Honor.

*Record scratch*

Wait, what? There’s a book that can get both a Printz–the YA award–and a Caldecott? The Caldecott? The one for picture books? For little kids? You’re seriously telling me this? Shut up.

Right? I thought the same thing. I hadn’t yet read This One Summer when the awards were announced. I had seen the cover, and thumbed through it at the bookstore, so I knew it to be a beautifully illustrated book. As soon as the snow stopped and the libraries opened again (hash tag snowmageddon), I got my hands on it.

The illustrations are fantastic. Evocative, well paced with an artful use of splash pages that break out of the panel format to mark chapter endings and important story points. It’s blue–a choice made in production by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki that, in my opinion, elevates the art and the emotional stakes while at the same time softening a sometimes difficult story by providing a little psychic distance for the reader. Blue is a calming color after all. It’s also entirely appropriate as it relates to the setting at Awago Beach, and the importance that water plays in the story.

So why don’t I love the idea that it received a Caldecott Honor? Age range and subject matter.

Let me try to explain. Um, justify. Er, rationalize. Crap, this is awkward.

The material in this book is not easy stuff. It’s a coming of age story that deals with newfound sexual desire, teen pregnancy, infertility/miscarriage, parental disharmony, and even touches on class/socio-economic issues.

So, first let me say, holy cow, well done Jillian and Mariko. This is great stuff, handled authentically, honestly, and experienced deftly through the eyes of the main character.

Slap two Printz awards on the cover, and call it a day. I am all in.

But the Caldecott? You’re killing me.

To me, and I’m willing to bet to most people, the Caldecott is the picture book award. I fear there will be censorship/banning discussions fueled by parents who are upset that this material landed in their children's hands by virtue of a sticker. One look at the negative Amazon reviews reveals exactly that. What boggles my mind about those negative reviews is the objection to language, not subject matter. But that’s an argument for another day–tentative title, “What’s Wrong with You? Words Are Not the Problem, You’re the Problem.” But I digress.

Technically, This One Summer totally qualifies for the Caldecott Honor. But emotionally? Instinctually? I think the committee misstepped.

Yes, the Caldecott's second criteria says, "A ‘picture book for children’ is one for which children are an intended potential audience. The book displays respect for children’s understandings, abilities, and appreciations. Children are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen and picture books for this entire age range are to be considered." But has there ever been one recognized that pushes that upper limit so hard?

Parents, teachers, and librarians are confused. That doesn’t help the credibility of the award. The negative Amazon reviews and this post (with subsequent discussion in the comments) on the Hornbook blog illuminate the issue nicely.

I don’t know. On the one hand, I am over the moon that graphic novels are getting attention, sales, and shiny award stickers. Cartoonist Dani Jones might have said it best on twitter:

In my wildest dreams of winning an Eisner, Caldecott, or Newbury, I thought I had to master 3 disciplines. Turns out I can just make comics.
— Dani Jones (@danidraws) February 2, 2015

And Matthew Winner, of the excellent Let’s Get Busy podcast, nails the reason we should all read El Deafo in his Washington Post op/ed piece.

Graphic novels matter. This is great. In an online discussion with alums and students of VCFA about this issue, it was suggested that maybe it's time for a specific graphic novel award. Not to eliminate graphic novels from contention for other awards, but to shine a light on them alone. Skip age ratings–that’s a big ol’ can of worms that almost no one can come to consensus on, but celebrate the writing, the art, and the storytelling for what it is by virtue of its unique format.

David Elzey suggested an excellent name for it: The PILKEY YANG award (for Dav Pilkey, Gene Luen Yang, naturally). Sounds good to me.

My thanks to that secret board of VCFA’ers for helping me clarify my thoughts, and a special shout out to Robin Herrara for rightfully turning me around on my second (undisclosed) problem with this award for This One Summer.

Do yourself a favor–read the book and make up your own mind.

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Middle-Grade and Back Again

J.R.R. Tolkien's books always feel like Christmas to me.  The hobbits' adventures span the seasons, but every installment brings to mind snug cottages, crackling fires, and lots of savory stew.  Perhaps this winterfying urge comes from my tradition of annually reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a leftover habit from college days when long breaks from school equalled reading binges.  Now, with another of Peter Jackson's epic film adaptations in theaters, I can't help but think it's time to visit The Shire once more.

In the 7th grade, I unearthed The Hobbit from my dad's collection of dog-eared sci-fi/fantasy novels and have never looked back.  In recent years, I was surprised to learn that Stanley Unwin, part of the original publishing house that took on Tolkien's work, gave The Hobbit to his 10-year-old son to read and review before they ultimately acquired it.  I'm intrigued to find that earlier generations placed The Hobbit squarely in the camp of children's literature (ages 5-9).  Though I first read it as a child, there was much in The Hobbit that I didn't appreciate the initial time through: the songs and poems (does anyone else skim through those spots?), the vocabulary, the allusions to mythology.  Perhaps this says something about the weak areas in my own education or how we've all become stupider over the years, but I think it also has something to do with the lack of reader-designations.

Rayner Unwin's original review

The Hobbit hit the shelves long before the designations of "middle-grade" and "young adult" became standard bookstore fare, when readers graduated from children's books to adult novels according to taste, not grade-level or even reading ability.  I think there's something helpful about reading beyond our comprehension, something timeless about being able to return to re-read a favorite and find new things that our past selves might not have perceived.  Have we lost this fluidity in today's classrooms, bookstores, and libraries?  It could be that the middle-grade category, as useful as it is, might also be quite limiting.  Will today's 10-year-olds, faced with more age-determined marketing, reach for a novel they might not fully understand?  Or will they hunt down something aimed specifically at their age-group?

What do you think?  When do the designations "middle-grade" and "young adult" cease to be helpful?  And, whom, primarily do they serve?  

P.S. It's also a good time of the year to pick up Tolkien's Father Christmas Letters.  So clever!