I just typed that title without really considering the psychological can of worms it just opened, as I am not and (I hope) never will be a girl (no offence to any girls) but the point I am trying to make still stands.
That point is this;
Why do we delineate so sharply between age brackets? I was browsing around Waterstone's the other day, trying to absorb some vibes for the book I'm writing, and I was struck by the focus on the '8-12' age group.
Why 8-12?
As it happens, I have tried to write a children's book and ended up with something that strays a little too close to YA fiction. As the wise and witty editor pointed out in her wonderful midway report, the book needs a little work to take it back to the 8-12 level. I have worked and worked and in my opinion, I now have a book perfect for an age bracket that doesn't exist; 10-14.
The thing is, I had a quick shufty through the 8-12 shelves, and I was rather unimpressed with what I found; I thought a lot of it (by no means all, or even most) was thin, rather patronising and often cliched.
Have I shot myself in the foot? Does my story need to be watered down in order to appeal to children (or more accurately, to children's publishers?) What should I do?
nearly 10 years? lol I should have said over ten years. Blooming Nora, Vicky, accept your age!! hehe
As a matter of interest what is the age of Harry Potter. I only ask because when you start reading/watching from about the 4th book/film the content gets much darker, sinister and things get alot scarier. As an 8-12 year old voldemort would have frightened me and given me nightmares, but that is going back nearly 10 years! children now watch more horror films than me!
I do agree with Anthony though, I believe we feel the need to keep our children as children. I hate how fast children grow nowadays. One of my nieces read a stephen king novel at a very young age and she loved it. So despite the brackets, its usally up to the parent to filter what their children read and watch and live everything, some are stricter than others.
But the 8-12 bracket still doesnt make too much sense to me because, in society, those ages have vast differences now!
On my daily commute, I happen across a Secondary school each and every day, and you can't help hear the conversations between the kids. Most of which you could not write down as dialogue and sell as literary fiction aimed at 8-12 year olds. Nor would you find it in a YA novel.
So why do we have these markets then? with books that are pigeon-holed into specific age groups?
I think it is because although the children might be, as Victoria has stated, little adults. But we, as a society, don't accept that and want them to hold onto their adolescence that little bit longer.
As it happens, and as much as I don't like to admit it, but Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, released in 1997, I was 11 years old at the time, however, I did not read the books until I was 23. At 11, I was too preoccupied with playing football.