Read Any New Middle Grade Books Lately?

As a certain book tells us, when we become adults we are supposed to put away childish things.  And as readers, we move from listening to stories, to struggling through early readers by ourselves, to discovering the delights of an engrossing “chapter book.”  We move on to longer novels for kids, then to teen or Y.A. novels, and finally to our very first adult books.  And we rarely look back.

 Well, that’s not exactly true.   There have been some novels, mostly teen, that have found a large adult audience.  You know what books I’m talking about: the Twilight series, The Hunger Games.  Also The Hate U Give and the novels of John Green (heavy on teen romance and angst).   Some people roll their eyes at adult readers of YA novels, but not me.  There are some great books written for teens, and some that are just fun to read.  Okay, I might look askance at an adult who only reads teen novels, but the occasional guilty (or not guilty) pleasure?   Sounds good to me.

 But there is a category of kids books that adults rarely think about, unless they are teachers or have kids in the right age range.  Those are the novels called “middle grade,” books for kids approximately 7 to 10 years old.  In other words, kids who are now independent readers but haven’t yet hit the rocky shore of puberty.  I suppose I’m prejudiced, given that my own kids’ novels are written for this age, but I am also an avid reader of middle grade novels.  I would guess that for every ten adult novels I read, I throw in one middle grade.

Some middle grade novels are beautifully written.  I’d strongly suggest my favourite working writer, Kate DiCamillo.  Of course she’s hardly a secret, being a bestselling author, but there’s a reasonable chance you haven’t heard of her.  Her trilogy of novels beginning with Raymie Nightingale are absolutely wonderful.  Another beautiful, and very slender, work is Patricia MacLachlan’s The Poet’s Dog.  I admit it, the book made me cry. 

In Canada there are dozens of fine authors of middle grade novels.  Try anything by Susin Nielsen, including her most recent No Fixed Address.  (Susin, who began as a Degrassi High writer, has returned to television for a new series called Family Law but I hope she’s working on a new novel during her lunch hour.)   There are recent “classics” like Kit Pearson’s Awake and Dreaming and Pamela Porter’s The Crazy Man.  Other books I’d recommend: Anne Fleming’s The Goat, Gordon Korman’s Schooled, Kenneth Oppel’s Half Brother. 

A lot of readers already like to return, if only imaginatively, to their dramatic teen years.  I say, go back farther and shake hands with your inner twelve year old.  These books will help you to get there.