'Tis the Season...to Give Them Monsters!

‘Tis the holiday season, and with that in mind, I’ll refrain from seizing upon this opportunity (it’s Friday the 13^th! ) to share quirky, bizarre stuff and an otherwise creepy, twisted, middle-grade related, spooky post….

Ok, no I won’t. Sorry, I tried.

What I will give you is permission to put darkness in your middle-grade fiction. Give ‘em monsters, and lots of ‘em. It’s the gift that keeps on giving…because while your young readers may insist on sleeping with a Nerf katana, or ask you to sweep the bedroom perimeter one more time, they are (in general) utterly fascinated with the creepy crawly, shadow slinking, mystery of the monster. They might not admit that they’re scared (they're too old for that, maybe), and they may not even understand that they enjoy that fear. That it’s exciting and necessary.

Necessary? Yep.

The monster represents everything they don’t understand. Everything they fear and worry about. Christopher Vogler, a veteran Hollywood story consultant and writing teacher, calls these monsters, this darkness, the Shadow. In his book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Vogler says that the Shadow “represents the energy of the dark side, the unexpressed, unrealized, or rejected aspects of something.” Middle-grade readers struggle with A LOT. Depending on the scale of the middle-grade spectrum, we could be dealing with puberty, adolescence, moving, divorce, abuse, relationships, emotions, identity, friendship, and the list goes on and on.

Stories need conflict and often that conflict comes in the form of the monster. Monsters offer wonderful personifications of the Shadow. The Shadow, as a monster, allows the writer to create a story in which he or she addresses those relative conflicts in the confines of the narrative. The monster allows for more traditional storytelling, offering an obvious vehicle for conflict, while providing an entertaining book. Percy Jackson is not battling kittens! He is fighting Medusa and Harpies and all sorts of monstrous creatures.

Middle-grade readers want to be entertained. They want a story they can relate to and enjoy and that offers excitement. What’s more exciting than a good monster to battle? Roald Dahl gave us The Witches, not The Unicorns. In his book, BFG, Dahl gives us flesh-eating giants. Flesh. Human flesh. The giants eat people. They crunch on people’s bones. Dahl certainly didn’t flinch at putting these horrors in the hands of definitely middle-grade readers, and I think these giants personify every seemingly impossible obstacle middle-grade readers face and the gatekeepers they fear stand before them. R.L. Stine didn’t build a reading empire on the back of his Feather Tickle series. No! Goosebumps. And it’s a slight understatement to say they did rather well.

But, to be fair, not every monster has to be big, or scary, or ugly, or have fangs and tentacles. Look at our own beloved Charlottes’s Web. You don’t think that when Charlotte says “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” she sees her father as a monster, at least in that scene? And what does she do? She runs out there to confront him. To face the monster. To do battle. And she wins. She saves Wilbur’s life. She beats the monster.

So, whether you have thought about it or not, whether you realize it or not, monsters, the Shadow, are an integral part of our middle-grade fiction. They give our readers a symbolic representation of their own fear and uncertainty in an exciting and entertaining medium: The Monster.

If you still doubt that there is any room to discuss monsters and holidays, consider The Nightmare Before Christmas in which monsters meet Santa….and kidnap him. Or look to the Germanic lore of the Krampus. American kids get coal if they’re bad. Germanic children get stuffed in a sack and get taken back to the Krampus’ lair to be eaten. I’ll take the coal.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to give the gift of darkness to your readers. Give them the Shadow. And I want to give you, as writers, permission to box up your unicorns and rainbows, pack away your puppies, and shush the critics who say “today’s fiction is too dark,” and let the mayhem loose.

Give them monsters this year. 

Love Is in the Air—Or Is It? Should There Be Romance in Middle Grade?

As Valentine’s Day approaches, our minds turn to romance, and mine is no exception. Okay, most people aren’t contemplating the role of romance in middle grade, but we all know middle-grade writers are just a little odd :) Recently I was remembering the Children’s Lit class I took my last semester in college. The professor, while very fond of Charlotte’s Web, hated how romantically-minded little Fern became by the book’s end. In the last chapters, it’s clear that Fern has lost interest in Wilbur, her once-beloved pet pig. When Wilbur wins first prize at the County Fair, her mind is instead on the new objection of her affection, one hunky Henry Fussy. She even runs off to ride the Ferris wheel with Henry instead of staying to see Wilbur presented with his special award, completely missing Wilbur’s long-awaited “Hour of Triumph.” Weeks after the fair, riding the Ferris wheel with Henry is still on Fern’s mind: “The most fun there is,” she tells brother Avery, “is when the Ferris wheel stops and Henry and I are in the top car and Henry makes the car swing and we can see everything for miles and miles and miles . . . . I think about it all the time.” Lovesick much, little Fern? Many of you may remember, little Fern is all of eight years old.

My prof, who had daughters near that age, found it completely unrealistic that an eight-year-old girl would choose a boy over the pet pig she had saved from death and lovingly raised. His girls still thought boys had cooties—they’d be more interested in an adorable animal any day. He further commented that he would never let his eight-year-old daughter ride a Ferris wheel with a boy and would wallop any Henry Fussy who came near her.

All of which brings up a good point—what role should romance play in middle grade? Are middle graders simply too young to have (or to should have) any real interest in matters of the heart?

I personally think romance has a lot to offer any story, even a middle-grade one: tension, conflict, emotional investment, the possibility of an emotionally satisfying ending for your reader (or a really bittersweet one). Come on, you know part of the reason you eagerly devoured every new Harry Potter book was to see if Ron and Hermione finally got their stuff together and confessed their feelings for one another. And even as an eight-year-old, I got an immense amount of satisfaction when Laura Ingalls won the heart of Almanzo Wilder over that awful Nellie Oleson.

However, I don’t think romance should be the main focus of a middle-grade novel. Or, if a love story is at the core, then there needs to be plenty of other enticements (humor, adventure, colorful secondary characters, a fantastic setting, etc.) to hold a young audience’s interest. (Many animated movies based on classic love stories/fairy tales go this route.)

Many middle graders simply don’t have an interest in romance yet—and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Middle graders will have their teen years to go hormonal, and the rest of their lives to ponder and experience the trials and tribulations and mysteries and wonders of love. I like to think of middle grade as a time when kids should just enjoy being kids.


And I certainly think any romance in middle-grade novels should be suitable to the age of the characters. I always wondered at books that portrayed the very young falling head over heels.



Charlotte's Web may have put Noodle to sleep, but I'm a fan!



I do love Charlotte’s Web, but I must confess—I, too, was a little heartbroken when Fern abandoned Wilbur for Henry Fussy. Wilbur was “Some Pig”—surely he deserved a little better.

-Dawn Lairamore