Word choice for middle grade books

[Susan]

My book has a 13-year-old main character. I believe the book is appropriate for students ages 9-13 (Middle Grades and Middle School, sometimes called Tween).

There is a HUGE difference in reading level between high level fourth grade readers and even middle level eighth grade readers.

I wrote the first draft with no attention to word choice, but I am now ready to go back and fix that. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to choose the words so they fit the reading level.

Help!

Thanks, Susan

[Vincent]

Read a few books based in that reading level. Avoid curse words and words that have too many syllables or any mention of Justin Beiber.

[S.J.]

Hi Susan,

I PM'd you. My daughter is 9 so perhaps if I see what you have we can help.

[Quoleena]

My advice is to stick with everyday words. The average middle grade kids/tweens aren't known for their extensive vocabularies in everyday speech. They may HAVE a good vocabulary, but they don't use them and might even feel like the book is beyond them if it contains a lot of "big" words.

And of course, no swear words, but jokes about bodily functions is fair game. Also, kissing scenes and talking about mushy stuff in general makes tween boys VERY uncomfortable.

[Susan]

Vincent wrote: "Read a few books based in that reading level. Avoid curse words and words that have too many syllables or any mention of Justin Beiber."

Aren't you a Belieber, Vincent?

No cursing, and no JB, so safe there. Right now, there are 'way too many multi-syllable words!

[Susan]

Quoleena wrote: "[J]okes about bodily functions is fair game. Also, kissing scenes and talking about mushy stuff in general makes tween boys VERY uncomfortable."

I suppose one might describe this as a book for prissy girls (I once saw a TV show where kids interviewed JK Rowling and asked her if she ever knew anyone as prissy as Hermione). These girls would die at the mention of bodily functions.

The book ends at the Middle School mixer, and the four girls (age 13) all have dates (one of the boys is even -- horrors! -- 15 and in high school). Actually, I was thinking I needed to ramp up the romance ("mushy stuff") some; my review of other books seems to show that the girls in them spend A LOT of time thinking about boys, if not actually talking to them or doing anything with them.

Thanks so much! Susan

[Quoleena]

Susan wrote: "Quoleena wrote: "[J]okes about bodily functions is fair game. Also, kissing scenes and talking about mushy stuff in general makes tween boys VERY uncomfortable."

I suppose one might describe this ..."

Ah, so your target audience is just tween girls and not middle graders in general? Well then yes, at that age, they're stereotypically into completely different things. I was only referring to boys that age. I think it's safe to say the opposite would be true for the average tween girl. There's always exceptions, butsince you weren't even asking about content :) Sorry. I was channeling this past weekend. I happen to have an 11-year-old boy who cringed at every kissing scene in Harry Potter (we just finished the last one). I had no idea how many there were until I experienced it with him and his ughs and groans.

[Grace]

I was always a fan of odd words in books when I was little... A lot of middle-grade and even younger than middle-grade books have really difficult words in them. I think that the difference is, though, that books for younger kids have to be self-conscious about hard words, calling them out and offering some kind of explanation before the reader can move on--like 'chiaroscuro' and 'perfidy' in The Tale of Despereaux, where the words are used as plot points and given a whole paragraph of explanation.

Just for making things understandable, though, perhaps just going through the manuscript and replacing long words with short ones, hard-to-understand concepts with a bit of explaining, would probably make everything good-to-go for the kiddos. and of course you could always recruit a few thirteen-year-old beta readers :)

[Susan]

Quoleena wrote: "Ah, so your target audience is just tween girls and not middle graders in general?"

Sorry, my fault. I'd like to think boys will read it, but I guess, in my heart of hearts, I know this is a girls' book. There's even only one boy in it for the first 3/4 of the book!

Grace wrote: "[O]f course you could always recruit a few thirteen-year-old beta readers."

I wonder about starting a thread where writers with kids could volunteer their charming tykes to try out age-appropriate books and report the results to the writers? What does anyone think?

And here is the shout out to S.J., who has volunteered to do just that!

[Micah]

Avoid words like "antidisestablishmentarianism."

;P

[Melody]

Susan wrote: "I wonder about starting a thread where writers with kids could volunteer their charming tykes to try out age-appropriate books and report the results to the writers? What does anyone think? i>
That is an awesome idea. I'd love to hear feedback from kids.

[Owen]

I can't really comment on word choice for the age range you mention, but looking (not too long ago) at children's stories from a bygone age, I happened upon this line: "Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck’ (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), ‘will permanently vitiate your future career."

The target audience for this was maybe 7 to 8? Certainly younger than 10. That makes me wonder if modern perceptions of what kids understand sell them short, and if those perceptions don't have as much to do with kids' actual abilities as to what they've been trained to do by adults operating on according various theories, which may in some cases be dubious.

That said, I do agree that going straight to the "source" is the best idea. I don't know many kids the 9-13 age range, but those I do know are both insightful as to what they prefer, and brutally honest (as well as specific) in conveying it.

I speak under correction, as others have much wider experience than I do, but I have a feeling that a pretty thick skin might be required when dealing with a 9-yr-old "editor". :-)

[Vera]

I blame television. Actually, someone else already did that, a couple of decades ago. It seems they measured the attention-span of kindergarteners over a long period and discovered that, ten years from the advent of Sesame Street, the average went from 3 minutes to just over 1 minute. Because television programs are adjusted to the audience.

The very same thing happens in education and literature. In olden days, the assumption was that the student/ reader would make the effort to grasp the material. In modern times, the material is matched to the ability of the student/ reader. Which means: no effort, no challenge. I see young children in the library palm and crease their way through three books in as many minutes.

[Susan]

I read somewhere that kids have a test in which they open a book to a random page in the middle and, if there are three words on that page they do not know, they do not buy/read the book.

Leaving aside the question of whether there is a network of kids who make up book selection tests which are then adopted by kids everywhere, is that a good test for the language in a book?