#middle grade fiction

[bodhrancomedy]

Just a list of children’s books that did impact my life way more than Harry Potter.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

I mean...this combination of depth and toilet humor is literally Shakespearean, so A+ for Eoin Colfer.

[lackadaisycal-art]

I wanted a slightly more nuanced version of this poll since a lot of people have mentioned preferences changing and it's data I'm interested in for a middle-grade aimed story

[pneumavita]

The last sequence of pages flows better when you see them in a row.

Read from the beginning on the main site!

Otherwise, follow for future pages mirrored here!

[headspace-hotel]

I think that middle grade books tend to have more complexities to them first of all because there's less publisher focus on them, there was a YA boom not a middle grade boom so they're not as... squished into a money-making formula. And secondly because there's a lot less romantic plotlines "allowed" in middle-grade books, romantic subplots aren't inherently bad but they're a lot more likely to be forced into a book that doesn't need or want them because they "boost engagement" or be written by people who don't want to be writing because Love Triangles Sell. Middle grade books can't have the sort of "heaving muscles, sexy body, no/awful personality but I just Want Them" thing that can kind of absorb a book's interesting aspects and devour them, it's not safe for the kids!

Also middle grade worldbuilding might not always have pressure to make sense because it's "just for kids" but it's more likely to try and get exciting or weird or fantastical with it because it's For Kids, so people who have an interest in a world they're writing might have more freedom to do what they want with it leading to more novelty if not universally higher quality.

I think the romance thing is part of it.

I think this is evidence that the way romance is treated in "teen" novels has a ripple effect on every level of the web of character relationships and interactions in a YA novel.

In a "teen" novel, other characters the MC's age are almost always being courted by the narrative as potential love interests. This can starve the book of other character interactions through pure overcrowding.

"Love triangles" were common throughout the YA boom, and I'm convinced it's partly because it's a money-making strategy. Manufacturing a "ship war" is a way to get people to talk about your book even if there is really nothing there worth discussing. I've seen small fandoms have a sudden explosion in activity after a "love triangle" plot was introduced.

But a triangle needs three points, and a "love triangle" means you need to devote a lot of "page time" to the romantic subplots because...you have to develop at least two love interests. There are many YA novels that have the MC torn between more than two possible love interests.

This got even worse when multiple POV's became the norm in YA, because then multiple MC's needed to be "paired up." So you had books where the MC's were romantically involved with each other and also each had something going on with another character, or books where EVERY POV character was paired with another POV character.

For one thing, this crowds out other character interactions just because there's limited space in a book.

For another thing, it's almost always bad when every character in a book is either a POV, a love interest, or both, because mains and love interests are virtually always the least interesting characters in the story.

The protagonist has to be "relatable" above all else, and love interests in YA are unbearably generic and stripped of all unique qualities. Part of it is the "attractiveness" requirement; there is only one "attractive" body type (thin with muscles) from this point of view, and in general "hot" means such a narrow selection of things that all you can ultimately do is shuffle hair, eye and skin colors. And they rarely ever have distinct personalities. They're just kinda angry and broody but also protective but also angsty. Or they're just generically nice.

(You also almost always can't have them be nonhuman in any meaningful way, because, idk, that would be Weird I guess.)

So...you don't have enough characters that are fucked-up weird gremlins. When your story is dominated by a huge love polygon that somehow involves 5 people, none of those characters get to be ugly, and that can be devastating.

Middle grade characters have to be interesting, not so much attractive or relatable. So you have characters that are weird, gross and nasty. You can have things like sentient kitchen appliances or telepathic Pegasi as important characters because you don't have to spend so much story RAM on characters that are acceptably hot. You can have scrungly trolls and giants with hairy nostrils and warts. You can have all your characters be cats.

[patticalkosz]

An innocent ladybug? Or the reincarnation of Han Solo?

With illustrator @xiaostudio17 on Instagram.

[cjbolan]

How I imagine Annabeth’s first time at Disney World went. You decide: is this THE Disney Hercules or just a character actor playing him? Art by me.

[Image description: Annabeth Chase wearing Mickey Mouse ears on her New York Yankees cap and saying "Um ACTUALLY " while reading a book on Greek myths, to the Disney Hercules scratching his head in confusion. End description.]

[audhdnight]

Getting increasingly fed up with adults who consume children’s media only to rate it badly for being childish

Yes, gravity falls is going to have fart jokes. Yes, famous middle grade fantasy books are going to have minimal gore/violence. Yes, Katara and Toph are going to be fighting constantly. Yes, the sixteen year old protagonist of a romance is going to swing wildly back and forth between emotions all throughout the story.

I’m not saying adults can’t or shouldn’t enjoy movies and shows and books created with children in mind. I LOVE middle grade fantasy even as an adult. I LOVE shows like gravity falls and AtLA. But you need to go into it with the understanding that it wasn’t created for you. You don’t get to read a fantasy book written for and about eleven year olds and then get mad that the themes were lighter or simpler than The Witcher or Game of Thrones or that the eleven year old kid made a foolish choice that one time.

Stop rating children’s books one star just because they’re childish

[sunshine-zenith]

Possibly a long shot but it can’t hurt to try. I’ve been actively trying to find a book I read in middle school for months now and I just can’t find it

It was a book about a boy who could see ghosts, the lore was there were multiple different types of ghosts, and I think the plot was a mystery about ghosts going missing and the boy trying to solve it. It might’ve been a middle book in a series (there was a lot of stuff glossed over or vaguely referenced to, especially regarding everyone’s relationship with each other)

I remember a handful of specific scenes-

The boy and his main ghost friend using Ghost Powers to teleport, going through Stonehenge in the process. A kid saw them and possibly the big bad too

There was an old lady that had the ability to touch ghosts I think? I remember a scene were the boy watches the old lady hug a distraught ghost and feeling bad that he couldn’t hug the ghost/upset that most ghosts won’t ever be hugged

Certain types of ghost had the ability to be seen by humans if they try. One of these ghosts saw a lonely kid and decided to befriend them but wasn’t good at her powers yet. She sat there trying hard to be seen, gradually gaining additions to her appearance (freckles, different eye colors), until she finally was corporal. The kid freaked out over someone randomly appearing next to them and left the ghost feeling bad

For years I’ve wondered about this book/series, but I genuinely can’t find it anywhere

[artistic-moth-man]

Emily Windsnap Final Shipping Post

Results are in!!! and the official unofficial ship names for the couples of Emily Windsnap are...

Emily and Shona - Siren Pop

Emily and Mandy - Kraken Arcade

Emily and Aaron - Semi-Love

Mary P and Jake - Forsaken Fins

Neptune and Aurora - Royal Coast

Millie and Mary P - Tea Queens

Millie and Neptune - Starwaves

Millie and Archie still don't have a name, but I haven't seen any suggestions so far, so I'll update this post when that happens

thanks for voting! this was fun!

[weremoose]

PREVIEW: Paranormal Deertective #1: The Laundry Room Haunting SUMMARY: Elmer's a deer down on his luck with a passion for the paranormal, Finnick's a single sheep dad trying to take care of his son, Finley, and Liam's a young rooster who's the new kid in town. When Elmer's elderly neighbour starts speaking of a ghost haunting the apartment's laundry room, the four of them work to solve this paranormal case, all with the help of an authorless book specialized in contacting the dead. WORD COUNT: 734 PREVIEW IMAGE:

Feedback and constructive criticism is much appreciated; just please be respectful!

The door, greyed with age, screeched loudly in a way that made Liam cringe out of fear of being caught. Once Finley swung it open, they were greeted by the sight of a dark, dusty room, cobwebs littering every available space on the ceiling. There were books scattered everywhere, tossed haphazardly into random piles, although there were some stuffed into cubbies with no particular care. 

While Finley proceeded to walk in, Liam instinctively went to flick on the lights. Despite flicking the switch up…and down, and up, and repeating that several times in rapid succession, there was no response from the ceiling lights aside from the dimmest flicker.

“Don’t bother,” Finley eventually told him, “They don’t work. Just leave the door open.”

Liam wasn’t particularly fond of that idea given that it’d make it far more likely for the teachers to catch them, but he wasn’t fond of being stuck in the dark in a creepy room, either. So he did as Finley said, and moved on.

Glancing around at the mess, Liam was both puzzled and a little disturbed. He really wasn’t sure if it was the knowledge that he wasn’t meant to be there or the decrepit condition of the room or both. Whatever the case, he felt uneasy. However, he couldn’t deny that he also found himself incredibly fascinated.

“Why does the school even have this place?” he asked genuinely.

Finley shrugged his shoulders. “No clue. They got lots of books here, though.”

Hesitant but morbidly curious, Liam approached one of the tall book stacks (well, more like a book pile. Or perhaps even a book hill). When his foot tapped against something on the floor, he instinctively looked down, finding a book at his feet.

Kneeling, Liam picked two books up, the dim lighting requiring him to squint to read the titles.

“‘The Health Benefits of Recycled Teeth?’” Looking at the book in his opposite hand, he lifted it closer to his face to read it better. “‘Top Ten Bugs That You Eat in Your Sleep.’”

“That one’s kinda boring,” Finley said casually. He appeared preoccupied with looking through the cubbies, clearly searching for something.

Liam quickly put down the books with an unsettled expression, as though they were burning his hands (which, frankly, with such cursed titles as that, it wouldn’t surprise him if they did).

“Why do they even have these?” Liam questioned. “Who would read this stuff?”

“Me,” Finley replied at once.

“But why?”

“I think they’re neat.”

Finley then pulled out a book, holding it out to Liam to show him.

“This one’s my personal favourite,” said Finley.

Curiosity still evident in his gaze, as though he’d already forgotten the absurdity of the last couple of titles, Liam took the book from Finley’s hands and read it:

“‘How to Contact the Dead?’”

Turning the book in his hands, Liam tried to find any sort of other text on the book’s leather bound cover.

“There’s not even an author,” he observed.

“I know. Cool, right?” Although Finley’s voice was fairly monotone, the excitement in his voice was still evident, complete with his fluffy tail wagging.

“It’s very mysterious.”

Liam’s curiosity persisted, and he decided to flip through some of its pages. A brief glance of its contents

showed that the book contained a lot of large words — definitely ones that weren’t elementary level — and written in a version of English that wasn’t exactly modern.

From what Liam could understand, it appeared to be very meticulous in its instructions. The author — whoever they might have been — was trying really hard to sell this whole ‘ghosts are real’ thing.

“Do you think any of it’s actually real?” Liam asked earnestly.

Finley merely shrugged. “Dunno. I’ve never encountered a ghost before to really confirm.”

“Do you want to?”

“If given the opportunity, I would take it, yes.”

Liam eyed the pages once more, then decided to hand it back to Finley at last.

“I don’t know if I’d want to see one,” Liam said decisively. “Sounds kinda scary.”

“They’re not that scary,” Finley said casually, “They’re just dead people.”

Liam shuddered, his feathers puffing up as he echoed in disbelief, “JUST dead people?”

“Yeah. I mean, they’re probably just like me and you, only deader.”

“And you’re okay with that? That thought doesn’t freak you out at all?”

“No. I’m not really scared of anything.”

“Huh. Wish that were me.”

[eli-zab3th]

People who grew up reading the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy... Are you okay?

[checkoutmybookshelf]

From Criminial Mastermind to Fairy Tale Hero: The End of Artemis Fowl

Here we are, everyone: The final Artemis Fowl book. It has been a journey revisiting the first series I was old enough to follow and fandom, and it's wild to me that we're finally at the end. Especially since I picked up the first Artemis Fowl book in late elementary school (I'm genuinely not sure when though, because the first book came out in April of 2001, when I was in fifth grade and it's very possible I didn't pick the book up until sixth grade, which would have put me at 11, same age as Artemis in that first book) and the final book came out in 2012, when I was in my junior year of undergrad. So at that point, Artemis, Holly, and Butler had been part of my life for a long time. And now here we are, to say goodbye to them again after this leisurely re-listen/read. Let's talk Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian.

Artemis grew and changed so much across eight books, which makes sense because holy cow do kids change a LOT between 11 and 15. We get so busy living life in those years that we don't really think about how much we truly learn and grown between prepubescence and full-on teenagerhood, but that is a time of massive change, and I think that more than anything else really justifies how Artemis goes from a chillingly vampiric child to a teenager with enough compassion and empathy to understand that sometimes the right choice is a heroic self-sacrifice for the people that your people (both humans and the people, in this case) love. Artemis also did a really interesting version of that thing so many teenagers do where they hit a point where they can't just phone in their abilities anymore and have to actually put effort in, but for Artemis it was emotional rather than intelligence. And yet even when making said heroic sacrifice, we have the absolutely beautiful callback to the end of book one, where Artemis drugs his mother, Butler, and Juliet to keep them from being harmed by the bio-bomb. To stop Holly from preventing him from stopping Opal, Artemis sedates her. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Except where best villain ever Opal Koboi is concerned. By this book, Opal is so disconnected from reality that she is willing to risk literally going nuclear to escape captivity, and then just...casually sparks off the apocalypse because if there is one thing our girl wants, it's to be Empress of the World, and if that means using spirit zombies and an ancient fairy doomsday device, then I guess it's a good thing she's already versed in black magic. Or something. Opal is fully and completely off the rails at this point, and if you catch yourself referring to yourself as "Mommy" in reference to the spirits of several scores of ancient elven berserkers who would--barring a geas--murder you for it, you might want to stop and take a long, hard look at your life choices. And maybe don't forget that you've cloned yourself, because that's the kind of little detail that can completely ruin your chances of being Empress of the World.

Holly quite possibly deserves every medal that exists for managing to drag Artemis's extremely out-of-shape butt through increasingly dangerous and high-stakes missions while navigating fairy politics and *checks notes* breaking up with her commanding officer after a disastrous date where they both got kicked out of a crunchball match. (And once again...HOW DARE Colfer leave this in exposition and not show us this amazing disaster of a date!?!?) Holly has also just been through the emotional wringer with Artemis and every time he decided to double-cross or lie by omission to bring off a plan and every time he does something infuriatingly human that drives up her blood pressure and yet makes the mission succeed. And then she has to sit there and watch him die to save humans and fairies. Seriously, the fact that Holly Short is a functional being rather than a hot mess is nothing short of a miracle.

And then we come to Butler. Long-suffering, super fucking over it, broken-hearted Domovoi Butler. Artemis got DAMN lucky that the whole "put my spirit in a clone of me" plan panned out, because if it hadn't, Holly was entirely correct: Butler would never have recovered. Butler and Opal might be my two favorite characters in the entire series at this point. That's not where I started--for a very long time, Holly was my favorite character, and Commander Root still gets an honorable mention--but as a grown-ass adult (I'm not doing that math for you, if you want to know that I'm old, you do the math), I cannot escape how dedicated, competent, kind, and just AWESOME Butler is. I feel like the vibe here is very similar to the thing that happens when you watch Sound of Music as a kid and either Maria or one of the kids is your favorite character, but when you come back to it as an adult, Captain Von Trapp is EVERYTHING (RIP Christopher Plummer, we loved you). Butler has a similar vibe but in a different genre.

So, I was an adult and had enough experience of watching fandoms to see the mixed reactions to this book being released. People were sad the series was ending, people were disappointed because the series had seemingly drifted, and people loved it. My reaction was pretty mixed, because I had a lot going on, I knew there were good things here but I was also kind of missing the heisty, criminal mastermind vibes, but also OPAL KOBOI. So I was pretty unsure how to feel about this book when it came out, and then I didn't reread it for literal years because I went to grad school.

Returning to this book now, I have suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch respect for how Colfer tied up the series and how he pulled off a new Irish mythological cycle, but updated for the twenty-first century. I have enough life on me to appreciate the changes Artemis goes through, and enough literature degrees to have a new and deeply fulfilling perspective on the series structure. Last Guardian is not my favorite book of the series--it's not even in the top three--but I think that what it does is genuinely impressive and I love how you can finish this book and go instantly back into the OG Artemis Fowl. The story does not, strictly speaking, have to end. And that is a vibe I can 100% get behind.

I deeply love the Artemis Fowl books, and I cannot recommend the series enough. They have so many strengths, are incredibly well-written, and they live rent-free in my head even now as an adult.

[qbdatabase]

Since Lesbian Visibility Week falls in Autism Acceptance Month this year, I’m combining them together! From April 26th – May 2nd, the Daily Books all feature autistic wlw characters, plus some bonus titles that have already appeared as Daily Books

Full list of titles, authors, and blurbs below the cut!

Barbary Station by R. E. Stearns

Desperate new engineers high-jack a space station to join a pirate crew only to find the pirates aren’t living in luxury–they’re hiding from the AI security system gone mad.

(bonus wlnb) The Unbalancing by R. B. Lemberg

New love blossoms between an impatient starkeeper and a reclusive poet as they try together to save their island home from sinking beneath the waves.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future.

Ellen Outside the Lines by A. J. Sass

A novel about an autistic thirteen-year-old navigating changing friendships, a school trip to Spain, and expanding horizons as she questions her gender identity.

Hoshi and the Red City Circuit by Dora M. Raymaker

Due to their unique neurology, only the enslaved Operator caste can program the quantum computers that run 26th century Red City. When three of the caste are ritually murdered, it’s up to private investigator Hoshi Archer–herself a recently liberated Operator–to help the police solve the case.

All the Love Songs by Nicole Pyland

When Lennox and Kenzie meet, there’s electricity between them. And a celebrity summer camp is the perfect opportunity for them to explore what might be. But after the magic of their week away from the world dissipates, can they still find that spark and make their relationship work?

Sprinkled in the Stars by Violet Morley

AJ Beckett is just trying to get her seven-year-old autistic daughter through life in one piece. Melanie Cooper has just signed her last movie after the media keeps portraying her as cold and hard to work with. In a series of coincidental meetings, AJ battles her desire for control while Mel struggles with trust, but falling in love has never been so sweet.

Thornfruit by Felicia Davins

Alizhan can’t see faces, but she can read minds. Evreyet Umarsad longs to be the kind of hero she reads about in books. So when Alizhan needs help, Ev doesn’t hesitate. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that draws them all over Laalvur and beyond.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a “mockumentary” bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Now, a new crew has been assembled …

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard.

[pneumavita]

Nothing like a mommy tuck-in!

Read from the beginning here!

And on comic fury!

[oncillaphoenix]

middle grade literature crossover I’d like to see: Artemis Fowl vs. the Mysterious Benedict Society