Should you read middle-grade books?

A handy flowchart from BookRiot.

Click to blow it up.

I really like the choices stemming from the box: Were you once between the ages of eight and twelve? Hah hah hah!

Now, I like flowcharts, and I like SOME middle-grade books, but there are plenty of MG books that simply read too young for me. Also, as it happens, I haven’t read a single title on that flowchart. Oh, wait, yes I have. I read THE LIGHTNING THIEF. I didn’t like it. I was like, “You’re supposed to be the daughter of the goddess of wisdom? Because you seem ridiculously slow to me.” (I don’t remember what was happening in the plot that made me feel that way; I just remember the reaction.)

Also, there are very few titles listed on this flowchart.

I know that some MG strikes me as reading older and being way more fun for adults (or at least me). Like DWJ middle-grade titles, or the JINX series by Sage Blackwood, or I think Merrie Haskell’s books are technically MG. Wait, hey, you know, THE FLOATING ISLANDS was listed as MG in some locations.

Anyway, those are some of the titles that I’d be putting into a flowchart like this. Not sure what else, but I am sure I would separate MG-that-kids-might-like from MG-that-everyone-might-like.

How about classics like Narnia, wouldn’t those work?

I know some of you read a lot more MG titles than I do. Any titles on this flowchart jump out at you as just great books for everyone? Any other titles that you would definitely put on a flowchart like this?