Chapter 2: Divisions of Young People's Literature

Chapter 2: Divisions of Young People’s Literature

There are four major divisions of young people’s literature that we encounter the most as teacher librarians: Children’s literature, Middle grade/ tween, Young adult, and New adult. Children’s literature is defined by reaching kids between the age ranges from 0-8 including picture books, wordless books, and chapter books. Middle Grade and tween books are the books that serve the population of 8-12-year-olds. One common misconception is that middle grade books are for middle schoolers, but middle school populations are 11-13 year old students. Middle school books often deal with tougher issues so they are not necessarily a good fit for the lower end of middle grade level. Young Adult are books marketed and developmentally appropriate for students between the ages of 13-18 years old. One thing is to always remember to review books before recommending them as you want to make sure you are not suggesting a book that is more developmentally mature for the student you are working with. The last division is a newer categorized division called New adult which is meant for young people between the ages of 18-30 years old. This branch of young people’s literature came about around 2009 when publishers were looking to reach older readers with the same enthusiasm as YA readers. These books often deal with adult issues especially adulthood’s firsts like moving away for college or for the first time, first real relationship, etc.  These divisions are there to help those who are suggesting books to students- remember that students often want to read up from their own age, so it is our responsibility to be knowledgeable about these divisions and make sure that we are making appropriate suggestions to students.

Reflection: 

I think the biggest part of this chapter that hit home for me after working in a middle school the past few years is that middle grade novels are not the equivalent of the middle school experience. In my previous school, my librarian often kept more edgy YA novels out of the library and preferred the middle grade novels. In her defense some of it made since when she explained it, that most of the 6^th graders were still avid readers while you were less likely to see 7^th or 8^th graders in the library. But one of this issues I saw often was that my 7^th and 8^th grade students thought that the middle grade novels were too young for them, they did not discuss topics that they were interested in which in turn made them less likely to go to the library. As discussed in the video, this is a common misconception and issue in middle schools. When I read Lily and Dunkin as a bigger YA reader I classified it as a middle grade novel because of the age of the students- the topics of mental health and transgender identity did not strike me as a topic that might be more developmentally appropriate to put in the YA category. I think that this is very important to know and I will need to go back to my Lily and Dunkin  blog post and look more closely at my wording because I no longer think it would fall under middle grades just because the protagonists are in 8^th grade.