Confusion

The other day I had a long conversation with a children’s librarian about the American Library Association (ALA) awards. I was surprised when she said most Newbery winners have been young adult novels. She gathered the 2008 award winning books I needed to read for an upcoming writing meeting, and the conversation ventured into age levels for children’s books. 

For the past six years, I’ve been under the impression that there was a set of universal standards for breaking books target age ranges. The definitions got fuzzy when the librarian started talking about midway, middle grade, and young adult novels. She told me that middle grade is considered to be for middle school children, and midway or transition novels were for kids in the latter part of elementary school. I thought that the writing world and the reading world followed the same set of rules. I guess I was wrong, unless my town’s library follows their own set of rules not shared with other librarians in the country. 

So, packed full of doubts, I pulled out several writing books for some affirmation that I wasn’t delusional about my previous beliefs. I found the same information across the board. 

• Easy readers / early chapter books (48-64 pgs) – 4-8 yr olds
• Younger Middle Grade / Chapter books: usually between early chapter books and novels in length – 7-9 yr olds
• Middle Grade: are usually 128-200 pgs and are traditionally for 8-12 yr olds
• Tween / Upper Middle Grade / Transitional: 128-200 or more pages – 10-14 yr olds
• Young Adult / YA: up to 250 pages – 12 and up or 14 and up depending on the content and situations

Makes you want to go hmm.... I couldn't find the age level guidelines the librarian quoted me, and I guess I'm not going to worry about it unless someone else tells me otherwise.