VBT - Writers on the Move monthly viewpoint:
This topic has come up several times in the recent past on several forums I belong to. The question posed was what is the difference between MG and YA novels. I've been following the postings and gathering information to distinguish the two.
There are no clear definitions as some YAs will overlap into MG and vice versa. There are age limits but even those don't seem to be true boundaries in distinguishing the two genres.
In our little town, elementary school is kindergarten through fourth grade, middle school is fifth through eighth gradea and high school is ninth through twelfth grade. In other towns, elementary may include fifth grade and even sixth grade. I even know one town that only has two schools, the elementary school and the high school so their high school includes seventh through twelfth grade.
So how is one to define the markers between MG, tweens and YA? As an author, I think content plays a big role. My books are classified as middle grade, ages 9 to 12, which is probably appropriate, because from the information I've gathered the last few years, it seems fifth graders are studying US History, which my books would fall in that category since they are basically historical (facts include some history and other types of info about the states that are not well known unless a student is actually doing a report on the state), and they are also part fiction in that the interaction between my characters is fictionalized.
I've written two stories that I call YA since the characters are a bit older and the themes seem to be more fitting for upper middle school girls, even into high school aged girls. But actually after looking through several definitions, I think I should reclassify these stories as tweens since they are geared for girls about ages twelve to fourteen, and YA classifications seem to include up to age eighteen or nineteen, with some folks including up to age twenty-one in the YA category.
My view on this would be that I guess it really depends on how the publisher classifies the book. What's your opinion of classifying books for children/young adults? What would you call your book, if writing one for this group?
Leave a comment and post your opinion on this topic.
