Middle Grade Fiction for Late Summer

Middle Grade Fiction for Late Summer

On my blog Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, I've recently interviewed some authors that embody the spirit of middle grade fiction. Here are a few examples:

 

Terri Libenson creates the graphic novel series Emmie & Friends. When I asked her about her most recent addition to the series, Always Anthony, she said, "In the acknowledgments section of some of the newer books, I started asking readers to suggest their favorite characters to use as protagonists. Anthony was requested a lot, and I felt he deserved his own story. I chose Leah to star opposite him because I wanted someone very different in nature, and she was a great fit." 

 

Sean Ferrell's The Sinister Secrets of the Fabulous Nothings is a sequel to his novel The Sinister Secrets of Singe. He said: "Book 1 (Sinister Secrets of Singe) is very much about the hesitation a kid feels about entering the adult world. Secrets have been kept, family history has been hidden, and Noah doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to fit in. He starts book 1 isolated and uncertain...Book 2 finds Noah struggling in a different way with growing up. He’s no longer afraid to try to fly, but he is uncertain about where to go.

 

Dan Gutman, author of the My Weird School series, also wrote The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle. He said of his new book: "When you’re blending fact and fiction together in a story, you have to be very careful not to overwhelm your readers (especially young readers) with too many facts or too much fiction. I don’t want to bore the kids, and I also don’t want them to feel like they’re getting a history lesson. I think the best strategy is to tell a great story, and slip in just enough facts and real background to make it believable."

 

Katherine Marsh's most recent middle grade novel is The Myth of Monsters: Medusa, the start of a new series. She said, "I have a 13-year-old daughter and I've been struck by how many of the mega-successful middle grade fantasy series feature boy heroes and girl sidekicks. Take Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase or Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. The girls are portrayed as smart and helpful but not the leaders. I purposefully wrote this series to challenge that and give my daughter another model, one in which the girls are the brave, headstrong heroines destined to lead the action and the boys are their smart, sensible sidekicks."

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

--Deborah Kalb