Growing With Middle Grade -- or Out of It? by Kell Andrews

Sometimes a series outgrows the middle-grade category, but more often, readers do.

I finally read Megan Whalen Turner's Thick as Thieves, the fifth book in the Queen's Thief series. Immediately upon finishing, I ran to the library to check out the rest of the series and begin again.

My library shelves the first book, The Thief, in the middle-grade section. Written in 1996, Turner's twisty tour de force won a Newbery honor, forever anchoring the series as a work of children's literature. The rest of the series is shelved in YA.

Before the American Library Association launched the Printz Award for young adult literature in 2000 (concurrent with the flowering of the YA genre), the Newbery Awards more frequently recognized YA books. In the 21 years since The Thief was published, the series has grown, not just into YA, but to an adult series in terms of complexity, theme, and the age of the characters. The Thief's Gen is recognizably a teen boy, but he's the only character in the series who is. The age of Kamet, the main character of Thick as Thieves, is unspecified, but could easily be over 30. He is no boy. And with the series' publication spanning than two decades, neither are Turner's original fans. A 10-year-old who read The Thief is 31 now.

Not many writers have the luxury of taking five years to write a sequel and finding themselves still with a publisher and fans, but even if authors match the book-a-year pace publishers prefer, readers may age out of a series before the last book is published, even for relatively short series.

Middle-grade readers love series. Series drive the industry, but a flaw in the publishing model is that kids want the whole series now. But while they figuratively "can't wait" for it, often they literally won't. But writers can only write so fast, and publishers have only so much patience for series that shed readers with each concurrent title -- something they tend to do in all age categories, and may do even faster as those readers move on to other interests. Middle-grade may be intended for ages 9 to 12, but readers who start a series in 4th grade may put it behind them before it concludes in 7th.

When do they outgrow it? When do maturing young readers follow a series? JK Rowling's readers assuredly did, following wide-eyed 11-year-old Harry from his middle-grade debut to his grimmer YA conclusion. More often the durability of reader interest depends not just on the progression and maturation of the series, but the orientation of the reader. My 7th grader is still salivating for the next book in Shannon Messenger's Keeper of the Lost Cities series, but a 12-going-on-20 friend who started the series with her can't be bothered.

An advantage of reading middle grade and YA as an adult is that I'll never grow out of it. If it hasn't happened yet, it won't. When Thick as Thieves comes out in paperback, I'm planning to buy the whole set with matching covers. And then I'll read it again. 

On Fiction, History, and Wishing the World Were Otherwise, by Anne Nesbet

            I've been thinking a lot recently about the places where fantasy and history overlap, and in particular about the strange things that sometimes happen when our stories revise the past by making the painful parts of history otherwise.

            Making things otherwise is a desire very much at the heart of most writing, of course. It's pretty much the essence of fiction! In real life, we can't tweak what has already happened--we can't, in real life, heal wounds inflicted hundreds of years ago by one human being on another. But in fiction, we can. And so, we do. It strikes me that sometimes I find these twisted histories satisfying and moving--and sometimes the fictional mending of the past unsettles me. Loopholes, it seems, can have unintended side-effects.

            I was recently quite moved by a historical fantasy by H. M. Bouwman, A CRACK IN THE SEA (2017), which is explicitly about loopholes, about "a crack in the sea" that allows doomed and desperate people from our world--Africans thrown overboard from slavers' ships, Vietnamese refugees whose boats are damaged by pirates and then sink--to travel to another world, where the water is sweet and people are very few.

            As Heather Bouwman explains in her very thoughtful Afterword, the inspiration for this book was the true, awful history of the Zong, a ship transporting enslaved human beings across the Atlantic Ocean: in 1781 the men sailing this ship threw 133 living people, men, women, and children, into the ocean to drown, so that the owners of the ship could collect insurance payments on the lost "cargo." One of the characters in Bouwman's story, a girl named Venus, comes from the Zong; the story of A CRACK IN THE SEA, as the author explains, had its origins in a longing to change what can't actually be changed:  

            "And the Zong is the heart and soul of my book . . . . [F]or me, the story first became alive with Venus--with my feeling that she had to escape, somehow, from this terrible historical fact, this thing from which, in real life, there was no escape."

            From my perspective, the power of a historical fantasy like A CRACK IN THE SEA depends very much on the reader knowing that what he or she is reading is a counter-factual wish, that in real life, these real people died terribly--and we wish so much that that could be otherwise that we are willing to write stories in which something else happens. What happens, however, when a student who doesn't know about the real history of the Zong--or the real history of the Vietnamese refugees in the late 1970s--reads this story? Perhaps the effect is quite different.

           

Although Bouwman's story is a fantasy, it does its best to take historical suffering seriously (as her author's note reminds us), even while opening magical/historical loopholes. A more extreme example of that approach might be Guillermo Del Toro's film, PAN'S LABYRINTH, in which a brutal tale of the Spanish Civil War gains another dimension through its young heroine's fantastic adventures. How one reads the ending of that film depends on whether one understands the "loophole" (the fantasy kingdom) to have been really, truly, literally real or, more poignantly (in my opinion), if we take that "loophole" as a reflection of our human and endlessly thwarted desire for the world to be other than it is.

        Other books go to bleak moments in human history and make them positively blithe, however. Remember the opening pages of J. K. Rowling's THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (1999)?

"Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, 'Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless--discuss.'

            The quill paused at the top of a likely-looking paragraph. Harry pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book, and read:

            'Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises.'"

            This description gave me a bit of a jolt the first time I read it, to be honest, and now that I've gone back to find it again, I understand better the reason for the jolt. The account here is jolly and lighthearted, but on the other side of this fictional lens (on the other side of this "otherwise") lies some pretty awful historical stuff, real people whose suffering had nothing at all in common with "gentle, tickling sensations." It's humorless of me to state the obvious this way, isn't it? But bear with me: I'm trying to figure out what makes some fantastical reworkings of history cut deeper than others. It seems to me that whereas A CRACK IN THE SEA focuses on the poignancy of the "otherwise" (by keeping the "terrible historical fact" close by, even while the fantastical loophole is opened), THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN puts more weight on the loophole, and lets the historical fact float away.

            Have you read any historical fantasy recently? What effect did it have on you? Have you encountered stories in which the "wish that the world were otherwise" particularly moved you? Does a purely humorous approach to rewriting history unsettle you at all, or do you merely find it refreshing? (A good recent example of history rewritten for comic effect might be MY LADY JANE, by the witty trio of Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows; in this novel Lady Jane Grey turns out to have been at the heart of various romantic and magical plots--and gets a happy ending, very unlike her historical fate.)

            So perhaps what I am discovering is that I am most satisfied when some trace of the tragic historical fact remains, even if veiled, in the counterfactual rewriting--the tension between fact and wish can then work a very powerful and poignant magic of its own. I am very curious to hear your thoughts, however--on historical fantasy, on loopholes, and on wishing the world were otherwise....

Proof that Bigfoot is REAL! by Hilary Wagner

If you've ever watched the show, Finding Bigfoot--something I watch when I can't fall asleep, you've probably noticed the show tends to go in a loop. They interview folks who claim to have seen Bigfoot, they go searching the wilderness in a dark, mostly creepy forest setting, and then--of course--there's some mysterious howls exchanged across the landscape and knocking on wood, which apparently is something Bigfoot would do to attract, well...another Bigfoot. They never find Bigfoot. They never find irrefutable proof of Bigfoot, but man, do they believe he's out there.

I know Bigfoot is not real. In all the years people have been chasing Bigfoot, there would be scientific proof, such as remains, DNA, or heck, even pictures that weren’t blurry brown smudges! Truth is, though, I want Bigfoot to be real. I want there to be a creature out there that's stayed miraculously hidden from humans for eons. I want the Yeti to dwell in the snowy mountains of Nepal. I WANT TO BELIEVE! 

That's where we come in. As writers, we get to step in and bring our favorite "what-ifs" to life! We get to give them blood, and skin, and fur, and voices. Winged goblins, evil witches and scaled dragons take flight. Animals talk in a way we understand. Dwarves, gnomes, and fairies live in the shadowy places of forbidden forests, and we, as writers, have the honor of making the unreal very real.

This is how we know all dragons have a small soft spot on their underbelly. This how we know Santa can squeeze down even the smallest of chimneys. This is how we know house elves are bound as servants forever, unless given clothes by their owner. 

And, this is how I know I'm born to write.

I want to believe.  :)

#Diversity and Social Action in Children's Literature, with Chris Eboch

The Power of Diversity

Recent months have seen an increase in bullying and racism in schools. Children, of course, reflect what they see in the world around them. We can mourn what’s happening, but a better way to improve the world and feel empowered is to fight. Fighting can happen in a variety of ways: through civic action, discussing issues with our own children, lobbying for anti-bullying policies and programs at local schools, and so forth.

And as writers, we have a special tool: our books.

That does not mean every book has to be an in-your-face challenge or political statement. We know themes should be subtle, not preachy, we should not try to share everything we believe about the world in one story, and that young characters should be in charge of their own solutions – no adults who come in and fix things, explaining the proper way to behave.

Some books, especially nonfiction, can present issues directly. For example, I’m working on an educational title about racism and economics, and another about immigration. Meanwhile, novels can touch on subjects in lighter ways, if only by showing the wonderfully diverse world.

Sam Bond, author of the Cousins in Action series, says, “It took becoming a mother to two non-white children for my indignation on the lack of books with diverse characters to surface. I quickly realized that every book we bought or borrowed rarely contained children that resembled mine and those characters hardly ever shared similar backgrounds - unless that book was about adoption or China. It was also interesting to realize that Chinese characters often found themselves in the position of side-kick, rarely the main protagonist.

“Did it bother my children that their favorite characters didn’t look like them? I don’t think so. Did they notice? Not that they said. But it bothered me enough to start writing my own books so children adopted from China (like mine) would have characters that not only looked like them, but had backgrounds that resembled theirs as well.​”

Magic and Mystery

Fantasy and science fiction can show diversity in unusual ways, because they don’t necessarily have to be realistic. James Mihaley, author of You Can’t Have My Planet But Take My Brother, Please, says “Activism is central to my novel. Tula, one of my main characters, is a twelve-year old environmental lawyer. She is also an alien and travels around the universe protecting the natural beauty on different planets. While writing the book, I heard repeatedly that this was a boys book, due to the humor and sci-fi components. I rebelled against that restriction and did my best to invent interesting girl characters. Tula is one of my proudest creations.”

Greg Fishbone, author of the Galaxy Games series, says, “For me, having a team of kids that represents Earth, all of Earth, means showcasing all kinds of children, allowing as many readers as possible to see themselves in the Galaxy Games. It also means crossing borders and bridging differences to show all of these players of differing backgrounds and traditions working together toward a common goal.” 

Deanna Roy, author of the Magic Mayhem series, says, “In my Magic Mayhem series, I wanted to make sure that kids who have medical conditions saw themselves in a book. Jinnie Wishmaker has dyslexia and faces a huge challenge when trying to read a map to find her way to her stolen wish. Marcus Mender has been vaguely on the autism spectrum as long as he can remember, but has no real diagnosis to say, “This is what I’m up against.” His dietary restrictions make him feel completely alone in a world of pizza and chocolate milk and cheeseburgers. And Elektra Chaos may act tough, but inside she’s terrified of having seizures in front of the school. They make her feel different and weak, and she really wants to be powerful and strong.

“The world is hard to navigate, and I believe books are the best way to help anyone see what other people like them are doing to find their way.”

History’s Lessons for Today

One of my passions is for historical fiction, especially story set in ancient lands. In The Well of Sacrifice, I tried to bring the world of the Maya to life, while also touching on issues of environmental protection.

The Eyes of Pharaoh, shows kids today the differences – and similarities – of young people 5000 years ago. I hope readers will learn about a remarkable culture, and also recognize that the same humanity exists in all of us.

In my work in progress, The Guardians of Truth, is also set in ancient Egypt. In this young adult adventure with paranormal elements, fabulous brown and black fight against injustice. (Read a sample here.)

My novel The Genie’s Gift combines fantasy and history. Anise suffers from extreme shyness and the misfortune of being a girl in a male world, the Ottoman Empire. (Well, a fantasy version of it, inspired by The Arabian Nights.) While young readers may not face her specific challenges – ghouls, monsters, and a solo journey across a vast desert – they may see themselves in her social anxiety and desire to make her own choices about her future.

More Mayhem

These are just a few examples. The authors here at Project Mayhem support diversity and activism with a wide range of characters. Caroline Starr Rose‘s historical novels feature a girl with a learning disability on the Kansas prairies (May B.), and the friendship between an English girl and one from the Roanoke tribe in 1587 (Blue Birds).

Eden Unger Bowditch’s The Young Inventors Guild Trilogy features children from different parts of the world, finding commonality through science.

Joanna Roddy’s middle grade fantasy, Jules and the Djinn Master, draws on Near East mythologies about djinn and legends of King Solomon.

Yamile Saied Méndez On These Magic Shores features a girl whose undocumented mother goes missing.

Read about all our Project Mayhem Team Members here.

What example do you want your work to show to the world?

Learning From Masters: Diana Wynne Jones by Joanna Roddy

Have you ever been saddened by the thought that you've already read all of your favorite childhood novels, and you'll never again have the intoxicating experience of discovering them and entering their worlds for the first time? I do often. Whenever someone tells me that they've never read Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, or Narnia, I never think negative thoughts. Rather, I think, How lucky for them. They have all that just waiting to be discovered. 

However, some good gifts do come late, and for me this has been discovering the writings of Diana Wynne Jones. If you have never heard of her, your reading material is about to get a major boost. I am no expert on Diana Wynne Jones, but I began reading her books a few years ago and feel as though some vital readership that was withheld from me in childhood has now resurfaced and leads me into a second youth. 

Jones was an author who wrote many children's books. She was British and attended C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's lectures as a student at Oxford. I think that Jones was quite popular in her own country, but she may not have been so common in the average U.S. library, especially as she wrote during the rise of realist books for children, and fantasy had a sort of dangerous frivolity attached to it by well-meaning adults. 

My first introduction to Jones was through the film Howl's Moving Castle by Japanese film-maker Hayao Miyazaki (another delightful discovery, if you've not watched his enchanting animated films). I grew curious about the author and began reading the Howl Series. Since then I've devoured the Chrestomanci Series, which I enjoyed even more than Howl and have read many of her collected essays and speeches in Reflections on the Magic of Writing (the recent edition has an introduction by Neil Gaiman, who was a friend and admirer of her work). 

As a writer, I always bring a kind of apprenticeship mindset to my reading. I pay attention to plot, characterization, language, style, and anything else done masterfully or differently than I've seen before. Jones is remarkable for her complex plots that seem deceptively simple, never faltering in their tone and readability for a young audience. It's a kind of genius how her plots unfold, how surprising are her turnings, yet how every ingredient is there from the beginning. 

It strikes me that her books must occur to children much as life itself. There is a great, almost unknowable complexity to the world around them, but their own course through it is quite linear and understandable and familiar. And then when mundanities suddenly erupt with magic, meaning, and purpose, it's no great surprise. The latent power of every day things is always there, obvious to any child who suddenly discovers that balls are actually three-dimensional circles, or that certain animals can learn to talk or use sign language. 

Image by AnneCat at Deviant Art

Another thing I'm learning from Jones is her characterizations of children. They are neither miniature adults nor two-dimensional partial humans. They are children in the way one remembers one's own childhood. In your memory, aren't you fully yourself: reasoning, understanding, but without experience to inform you, and often in the frustrating position of having very little power? Jones's child characters are spot on.

Something surprising about her work is that books within the same series often seem wholly unrelated to one another until one approaches the end of the novel. There are always new characters and settings. I don't know how this would go over in today's publishing industry, but Jones pulls it off beautifully, drawing you into a new world with the tantalizing promise that an already beloved fantasy universe will make itself known sooner or later.  

I encourage anyone to start on Diana Wynne Jones's novels. She has written for adults as well as children. It makes me exceedingly happy to know there are many more of Jones's books for me to read and many an hour to sit with a warm cuppa in a comfortable chair enjoying them. Is there really any other kind of happiness?  

I would also very much love to know of any other children's authors or series that readers and Project Mayhemmers have discovered in their adulthood. Please share!