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The Tween Novel For Girls: 21st Century Domestic Fiction

By on October 5, 2012   /   Book Lists  

What exactly is the tween novel for girls? Well, it’s mostly just a marketing term. The term tween communicates to some marketing departments in publishing houses that a book will likely have commercial appeal, explore the middle school experience or upper elementary school concerns of children ages ten through thirteen, and focus on peer relationships. A tween novel is really just a sub-category of middle grade fiction.

Middle grade fiction is a confusing name. I think the intention is that it is fiction geared toward children in the middle grades of their schooling, which would be grades three through eighth, approximately. But I think it gets confused with middle school. Is it about children who are in middle school? Maybe sometimes (when it’s “tween” fiction), but not always. And do middle schoolers read middle grade fiction? Sometimes, but often middle school students have moved into reading young adult fiction.

Another hallmark of tween fiction for girls is that it revolves around core emotional needs of a girl versus a high stakes plot. This doesn’t mean it’s devoid of action. It’s just that the action often involves everyday battles (i.e. how to get invited to that slumber party). One could argue that these books are really the 21st century version of the 19th century domestic novel, mirroring the everyday experiences of girls ages 11 through 13. This is not to say that they are also devoid of tension. They are not. But the tension is mostly emotional and centered around the security of key friendships. Some of these books in this category don’t use the hero’s journey as their structure. Instead, the books can be more episodic, such as Lauren Myracle’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, which are chronicle books or year-in-the-life books. This would also be true of epistolary novels, such as Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison, which straddles the YA/tween categories, or graphic/diary series like Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell.

It could be argued that Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Tom Angleberger’s Origami Yoda are domestic fiction for boys. Based on those sales, I think there will be a lot more books like this to come. And in my book, that’s a good thing. The late great poet and novelist Lucinda Clifton said that children need books that provide both windows and mirrors. There is no doubt that domestic fiction provides those mirrors.

 

 

Hillary Homzie‘s second tween novel for girls,The Hot List, was published last year. She has three boys so she must become a spy to write about tween girls and remember her own experiences, which is easy since Hillary claims that she’s still thirteen.

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Winner! Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities!

By on October 4, 2012   /   Giveaways  

Our random name generator has spoken! And the winner of Mike Jung’s Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities IS…..

Courtesy Disney-Pixar

Elasti-Girl!

No, I mean Peggy Eddleman, who chose Elasti-Girl as her favorite superhero! (I think a lot of fellow multitasking parents would agree with you, Peggy!)

Congratulations – and please email your address to the msfishby@2021.fromthemixedupfiles.com email contact above so we can get your book to you ASAP!

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Community-Building at KidLitCon 2012

By on October 4, 2012   /   For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Giveaways, News  

KidLitosphere Conference

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to tell you about a beautiful fall day last week when kidlit bloggers came from all around the country to talk about their favorite subject: children’s and teen books. Along with librarians, authors, school teachers, agents, and publishers, three Mixed-Up Files members were there, too. Us, three that is.

Michelle Schusterman, Sayantani DasGupta, and Sheela Chari talk about community-building and the Mixed-Up Files at KidLitCon 2012

At this year’s KidLitCon held at the New York Public Library, Michelle, Sayantani, and I shared our experiences in community-building on the blog and off the blog, using our collective Mixed-Up Files experiences. Not only that, there was KidLit Jeopardy, live tweeting, and prizes we handed out to our Jeopardy winners and 3 tweeters in the audience chosen at random!

Books by Mixed_Up Files authors that we gave away at our presentation. All right!

We split our presentation into three parts – building, sustaining, and expanding your blogging community. Michelle started us off, using her previous experience as a founder of the group blog, YA Highway, to talk about how to build a blog, find friends instead of just followers, seek IRL or in-real-life interactions, and learn how to balance it all by finding the right methods of communication for yourself and taking time to unplug and recharge.

Over twitter, audience members in the room responded to our question:

What’s the best place for a meet-up? #mglitchat

 ‏@ohmiagarcia: cafe! Coffee is always a must.

 ‏@celialarsen: virtually: twitter; in person: a place that serves alcohol!

‏@SleepingAnna: depends on your group: living room to coffee shop to Skype!

‏@RobertFWalsh: Bill Gate’s basement. Failing that, his garage. (Note: I’m no longer welcome there.)

Next, I talked about sustaining a community – finding ways to keep your readers coming back. I focused on giveaways, something we’ve done frequently at the Mixed-Up Files, and shared two major ones: The Great Library Giveaway and Skype Author Visits. I talked about how giveaways, while fun, don’t always generate enough traffic on their own. But with some planning and innovation, and by looking at the big-picture, you can still have successful giveaways that benefit more than just the winner but the community, too. It was especially to nice to share the successes of the 2010 Library Giveaway, where we gave away 70 brand-new library books to a library in need.

Psst… we have a new goal this year of 100 – so if you are interested in donating a book or nominating a deserving library, details are at those afore highlighted links.

I also shared some of the joys and challenges of Skype visits – and even tried to enact a real-live Skype conversation with Elissa Cruz in front of everyone – but the technological gods were not on my side and the call didn’t go through. But never fear! We continued on gallantly!

During this part of the presentation we asked over twitter:

how do you get readers excited about a giveaway?#mglitchat

‏@celialarsen: post link to contest in various places, offer swag/book of choice.

@SleepingAnna: Get the readers excited about giveaway! Thru info and fun contest!

@LeeandLow: Re giveaways: “Don’t have to give things away. Good content has more reach than giveaways.”

‏@RobertFWalsh: Giveaways should involve George Clooney. Or tickets to a Notre Dame football game. (Hint: my wife suggested 1 of these)

Sayantani ended the last part of presentation with a look at diversity in blogging. She suggested that expanding a blog’s readership with an eye to diversity means paying attention to who writes for the blog, and what they write for the blog – including a diverse blend of interviews, booklists, and general posts focusing on issues such as gender or multiculturalism. This also means diversifying who is on your blogging team. She gave the example of the Mixed-Up Files application process, our methods for scheduling posts through a message forum and calendar, and stressed the need for a robust membership committee that doesn’t always agree on everything.

She also talked about diverse content and shared several booklists from our blog that cover a broad range of interests, from books for boys, books for girls, books about disability, strong girl characters, and books by debut authors.

During Sayantani’s section, we asked tweeters:

What does diversity in blogging mean to you?#mglitchat

@SleepingAnna: Variety of ages, professions, opinions, interests. Ex: food story time entry read by a cook!

Yin (Perrine Wynkel), via paper and pencil: Diversity engenders a collision of different perspectives and ideas, which increases the possibility of something new and exciting and fascinating being created – new avenues of thought.

All in all, we had a fantastic time at KidLitCon, meeting so many wonderful bloggers and children’s lit enthusiasts. We feel especially lucky to have the chance to share some of our blog’s successes and challenges. Thanks so much to everyone who came out to hear our presentation! And thank you to all the wonderful Mixed Up Files authors who donated their books for our giveaway! And for those of you who weren’t able to attend, here’s three of the Jeopardy questions we asked attendees — test your knowledge of all things Mixed Up Files and leave your thoughts below in the comments section! (answers in form of a question, please):

Jeopardy “Answer” 1: The name of the statue at the center of the mystery in “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.”

Jeopardy “Answer” 2: The names of the two children in “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.”

Jeopardy “Answer” 3: The day and time #MGLITCHAT convenes to talk about all things middle grade

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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Sheela Chari is the author of VANISHED (Disney Hyperion). You can watch her this morning on the TODAY Show with Al Roker.

Sayantani DasGupta is the co-author of The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folktales (Interlink, 1995), the author of a memoir on race and gender in medical education, and co-editor of an award winning collection of women’s illness narratives.  She likes to tweet, blog, and otherwise blather.

Michelle Schusterman  is the author of the I HEART BAND series (Penguin, 2014). She’s currently living in Queens, and she blogs, tweets, and Tumblrs.

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