r/MiddleGrade • u/ejsfsc07 • 17d ago
Upper Middle Grade
Why aren't there more books that feature characters 13-15? It seems like such a pivotal point in a young person's life. It's frustrating because these are the stories I want to write... but there doesn't seem to be a place for them in the market! I didn't have much success during my querying journey (bunch of rejections, 1 partial request that didn't go anywhere).
Thoughts?
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u/cell_phone_cancel 17d ago
I struggle to find anything released in the last 3 years that would fit, especially with word counts dropping. An agent told me 64k was just too long for a book with a 13 year old protagonist pitched as upper middle grade 10-14 readers without YA romance themes for lower YA readers. Anything over 50k was too hard to shelf. Even when I raised first time author success like Amari and the Night Brothers 5 years ago or so, they said no chance now without name recognition.
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u/_Smedette_ 17d ago edited 17d ago
You might like:
- The Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voight
- Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
- Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
- His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
- Darkest Night, Brightest Star by Barry Jonsberg
- Run by Sarah Armstrong
- Spirit of the Crocodile by Aaron Fa'aoso
- Scar Town by Tristan Bancks
- The Sideways Orbit of Evie Hart by Samera Kamaleddine
I could go on, but the point is, they do exist! From a school librarian ❤️
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u/Non_Typical_Asian 17d ago
How many word count did you write for the book? You should keep writing regardless of the rejection.
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u/ejsfsc07 15d ago
It's about 54,000 words but I'm trimming some. My 'favorite' rejection was basically like "this was a super close one for me" and said that the first pages I sent were engaging/well written and they'd love to read this book if they picked it off the shelf but just thought it was too quiet
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u/Non_Typical_Asian 15d ago
Lower middle grade is 30k - 50k. Upper middle grade is 50k - 60k. Look into the subreddit pubtips. They have a lot of good info. I'm writing an upper middle grade fantasy.
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u/ejsfsc07 15d ago
Ok, cool! Then mine falls in the word limit. I love PubTips but I'm currently banned from there due to writing a fake query I thought was funny at the time that I had NO intentions of publishing (it's a long story) which is low key kinda embarrassing. They won't appeal the ban even though the incident was ages ago BUT... I can still access their subreddit.
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u/Agent_Polyglot_17 17d ago
I’m in the same boat. I have MC POVs 14, 16, 19, and 45 (mother). I was originally going to pitch it as upper MG but everything I’ve seen says it has to be YA. There is no sex, very innocent romance as a subplot, and themes of all three of the teenage ages. Obviously, the 14yo is dealing with different things than the 19 yo. They don’t belong in the same category as some of the things I see marketed as YA these days.
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u/Funny-Flight8086 16d ago
The rule of thumb is that you should rarely have a POV from an adult character in a kids book, middle grade or YA. Kids don't want to read about adults. It sounds like your book might actually be an adult fiction book, not YA or MG.
Contrary to popular belief, the age categories are not that easy to split. For example, A Song of Ice and Fire books are explicitly adult fantasy, yet JRRM has tons of chapters from children's POVs. Stephen King does it a lot too -- the dual protagonists of "The Institute" is an older man and a teen boy. Both of these are adult fiction, and King's work doesn't really include sexuality at all either.
So the question is: what is your book about? The target reader age is less about the age of the protagonist and more about the themes covered in the book.
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u/Funny-Flight8086 16d ago
Another example is "His Dark Materials"... Most people would classify that book as for younger readers... But where, exactly? I've seen it shelved in the Children's Dept, in the YA department, and in the Adult Fiction department at different bookstores & libraries. The protagonist of that book is 11 years old. Squarely sitting, age-wise, in the MG category, yet few placed actually categorize it as MG - many seem to settle on YA (for some reason).
Sometimes, books are just hard to categorize.
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u/Funny-Flight8086 16d ago
My WIP has an 11 year old boy and 13 year old girl as co-protagonists.
The big problem with the 13 - 15 age group is that it's mostly been ignored by publishers, which could be a good thing if you self-publish. There used to be this subset of YA called "Lower YA", often designed for middle-school aged readers with 14/15 year old protags. However, when YA started to become read by adult women, it started getting spicier and spicier to the point where most YA protagonists are now 17 or 18 or older to allow for the highly sexualized imagery. I blame the "Romantasy" uprise for this.
This left a hole in the market that was once filled by lower-YA. The reality is, kids read less and less than they ever did, and middle-school aged kids tend to read the least of any group. Market-wise, that is a problem for publishers.
Some books that feature slightly older protagonists in middle grade, often called "Upper Middle Grade", like Percy Jackson and such, are still around... But honestly they are being publishes less and less.
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u/CatNarrow8857 17d ago
There are definitely books that take place in the upper middle grade/junior high level in terms of character age. I would definitely do more market research. Along the way check out the authors since it’s not unheard of to mention who your agent is. Check out possible agents more and be more in depth with their past and future/about to be published projects as they talk about those as well.
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 16d ago
Series like the Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High, which were about teens but for a younger audience, aren’t really a thing anymore the way they used to be. I think it’s just the awkwardness of writing teens who can’t fully do teen things.
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u/PenVegetable4065 14d ago
I enjoy writing upper MG and have faith in the market! I enjoy reading them as well. I’ve started querying a little and haven’t gotten much traction but like I said, I have faith. I’m rooting for you too!
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u/FoodNo672 17d ago
??? There’s lots of them. I don’t read middle grade much as an adult, but Rick Riordan writes this age bracket and back in the day this was the bread and butter of folks like Sharon Creech, Judy Blume, KA Applegate, Jerry Spinelli, Tamora Pierce, Dianna Wynne Jones, and Katherine Patterson.