Mind the Gap (Guest Post by Melanie Dale)

When my husband and I took a trip to London a few years ago, in addition to exploring the Tower of London, dining atop the Shard, and transporting back in time with a rehearsal at the Globe Theatre, we rode the Tube all over the city. At each stop, a disembodied voice would remind us to “mind the gap,” this big gap between the train and the platform where presumably one could lose a phone or a foot. In addition to wonderful memories, we brought back a “mind the gap” souvenir tee shirt for our son.

Though there is no train in our suburb outside of Atlanta, we still occasionally say “mind the gap.” Other gaps need minding, like the one between middle grade and YA literature. As my three kids became tweens and young teens, that gap grew more noticeable. The piles of middle grade library hauls dwindled and they struggled to find books that resonated with their stage of life. Their love of reading began to fall into the void between childhood and young adulthood.

I’ve talked with many parents about this gap. There’s a big difference between an 11- or 12-year-old and an 18- or 19-year-old. We need stories for both, and all the ages in between.

When I was creating my own fictional London, set in small-town Georgia, I took that to heart. Mind the gap, not a gap on a train platform but the gap between middle grade and YA. I didn’t want any more kids like mine falling down into it. I wrote Girl of Lore for kids like them, who want teen characters, thrills, romance, and humor, without the young adult heat and intensity.

Tweens and young teens have a unique way of viewing the world. They navigate the difficult challenges of middle school classes, friendship drama, and rapid and unsettling changes but still look to the possibilities of high school with technicolor hope. 

This is why I love writing fiction for this group of readers, where reality is gritty and hard, but characters dream and anything is possible. My goal is that as these readers step from the train of middle grade fiction to the platform of YA, my book will fill the gap and help them over.

About the book, GIRL OF LORE

A girl who’s used to battling the monster of her own mind discovers there’s a sinister evil lurking in her small town in this atmospheric paranormal novel that’s perfect for fans of Tracy Wolff and Maggie Stiefvater.

Stories of dark magic and even darker creatures have always swirled about Mina Murray’s town of London, Georgia. Mina knows they aren’t true—and are likely perpetuated only to drive the quirky tourist-trap ghost tours of downtown—but that doesn’t stop her from collecting the stories and drawing them in her sketchbook. Something about the possibility of real monsters helps her deal with the monster in her own head: her OCD, which convinces her danger lurks everywhere.

But when a body is found drained of blood and a classmate goes missing, Mina is thrust into a tangled web of London secrets…that she seems to be at the center of.

About the author

Before embracing her love of monsters and sneaking into Mina’s fictional world, Melanie Dale published a bunch of nonfiction books, shambled around as a zombie on TV, and survived cancer. She’s written episodes for the anthology horror television series Creepshow and over a decade of essays for Coffee + Crumbs. While she has won no awards for literature, she won a Halloween costume contest one time and still feels pretty stoked about it. When she’s not writing, she’s teaching yoga or battling her own brain. She lives in the Atlanta area.

Keep up with Melanie Dale: MelanieDale.com

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