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?
I thin we honestly forget how quick children are growing up. Though I dont like it, most 12 year olds are little adults. I see them catching buses themselves, shopping in town with pocket money themselves and I know in school we studied books with quite 'adult' story lines involving murder/magic/truama/war and much more. So I am not too sure how they make these categories and how they define them.
I think 10-14, in my own opinion, seems a much better bracket, as there seems to be (to me) a huge difference between the mind of an 8 year old and the mind of a 12 year old, and that, I think, is due to the transition in to secondary/High schools. So in fact, maybe a better bracket would be 11-14 and anything below 11 are usually in primary schools......owie, my brain hurts :/