Guest Post & Giveaway: Kami Kinard on Middle Graders Make Great Characters

By Kami Kinard
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

My world is peopled with middle graders – my daughter, her friends, and the students I see when I volunteer or do school visits. Additionally, most of the fictional characters I’ve come to know and love are middle graders.

I met a lot of them in the books I read, and others have sprung into my head and then onto the pages of the books I write.

Middle graders are awesome! So I love creating middle grade characters.

When writing for middle grade...