How to know when a picture book should be a middle grade novel

The easiest way to know when a picture book manuscript should really be a novel is to have an editor tell you so. This is what has happened to me with three picture books so far. I’m hoping I’ve learned enough from this that I can share some of the whys with you.

My��picture book subjects��were:

1. A motherless girl who finds a stray kitten, told in poems.

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2. A boy who is passionate about��soccer, told in poems.

Me with my little sister

3. A girl whose little sister is sick. (Don’t worry; mine isn’t.) You got it–also told in poems.

For the kitten story, an editor wrote, “I think you have more to say about this girl and her father.” She suggested a novella-in-verse. I asked myself, “Do I have more to say about them?” And the answer was��Yes. There was a lot going on behind those 15 or so poems and that relationship.��I wanted to find out what it was.

So��reason number one: Depth. ��Have you only scratched the surface��of the story and the characters with your picture book manuscript? Are there intriguing possibilities you could explore? You will probably also need to��make your characters older.

For the soccer story, the age of children who were being read picture books, or even reading them themselves,��wouldn’t be passionate in the same way, and certainly not as skilled, as the character in this book. So the audience for the book was older. Therefore, the book should be of a length appropriate for this age group.

Same soccer-playing guy as the redhead above. Also my son.

Which leads us to reason number two: Age appropriateness. Are your characters’��skill sets and��interests beyond the age of most young children?��If your characters are too young for a middle grade novel, make them 9-14 and see what else happens to your story then.

For the sick sister story, an editor was concerned��that the��appendicitis limited the story’s appeal, and that the nontraditional structure already limited its saleability. This wasn’t a suggestion to move it to a novel, but it reminded me that another editor had suggested making it a book with chapters about the sisters. That would solve the problems, as novels-in-verse are an easier sell than picture books with the story written in poems, and the appendicitis would no longer be the main storyline.

So reasons number three and four: Subject Matter and Story Structure. Is your subject matter not universal enough for a picture book? This will limit sales to customers and to editors.

Anything more universal and less sophisticated than a box?

Is your story structure more accessible in��novel form? Is it too sophisticated for a picture book? You can either find a more universal subject and write it��more in keeping with a picture book, or you can take the story to a longer form for middle graders.����������

The joy for me in moving a picture book to a novel is that these are already characters I love, and now I get to spend more time with them and get to know them better. May it be so for you, too.