Posts Tagged Middle Grade

Interview – Christine Virnig, author of A BITE ABOVE THE REST

By Patricia Bailey on August 26, 2024 / Articles, Author Interviews

I had the great luck to get to read an early copy of Christine Virnig’s latest middle-grade – a Halloween themed adventure set in the very unique town of Samhain,Wisconsin. And, even though Halloween is still a few month’s away, I’m sure my interview with Christine is going to have you itching to break out the wax vampire fangs and your best monster lawn decorations.

Please tell us a little bit about A BITE ABOVE THE REST.

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to interview me! I really appreciate it!

A Bite Above the Rest is about a kid who moves from California to Samhain, Wisconsin, a tourist town where it’s Halloween 24/7. Halloween decorations stay up year-round, people wear costumes every day, and the town hall keeps vampire hours, of all things. Being the new kid is hard enough on its own, but then a terrifying encounter with the mayor causes Caleb to wonder: Could there be more to his new hometown than meets the eye? Could real vampires and werewolves and witches be hiding amongst the fakes? He immediately sets out to uncover the truth, aided by his quirky new best friend, Tai.

The premise of this book is super interesting and super fun. What inspired you to write this story?

I was inspired to write A Bite Above the Rest from the moment the main character, Caleb, popped into my head one day. The poor kid was walking around with a wooden stake in his back pocket because he was terrified that he’d encounter a vampire or werewolf or witch at any second. But as scared as he was, nobody around him was frightened. They were all just going about their business as though nothing was wrong. I was immediately filled with questions—Who was this kid? Where was he? Why was nobody else scared?—and A Bite Above the Rest was basically my attempt to answer these questions.

You tackle some very real issues in this book. A parent’s death, a new town, bullying, and anxiety among others. What do you hope readers will take away from Caleb and Tai’s adventure?

I actually didn’t write A Bite Above the Rest with any lessons or take aways in mind; my only goal was for readers to have fun reading it. But despite this, I do hope that Caleb and Tai’s adventure will show kids that we can all be brave when we need to be, especially when we’ve got a good friend at our side.

Caleb and Tai do a lot of research on monsters. Werewolves, vampires, witches, and merfolk all play a part in this book. Do you have a favorite scary being? If so, what about them do you love?

Probably vampires?? I find their lore absolutely fascinating, and I love the idea of living f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

I have always been terrible at coming up with Halloween costumes/decorations. The thought of doing it every day is exhausting to me, so I really appreciated Caleb’s approach. What about you? Are you a Halloween superfan? Do you have a favorite costume from your childhood? Do you go all out decorating your house now?

Apart from the candy, I actually didn’t like Halloween that much when I was growing up. A large part of this dislike was the costumes; they always made me feel awkward and exposed. I still feel this way as an adult, so I’m a huge fan of Caleb-style punny costumes myself. This year I think I’ll go as a fork in the road!

And no, I don’t go all out decorating my house for Halloween. But thanks to the throngs of spiders that LOVE living by our front door, we’re at least bound to have a bunch of very authentic-looking spider webs hanging about 🙂

Will you tell us a little bit about your writing process? In particular how did you go about tackling this story?

My writing process for fiction is supremely inefficient. As soon as I come up with an idea—which might be a character, a setting, a theme—I brainstorm just enough so that I can start writing, and then I let the characters do their thing. This writing style is definitely fun (for example, I didn’t know if Caleb’s suspicions about his new town would end up being real or not until I was halfway done writing, which meant I got to be surprised too!), but it does mean I need to do a lot of revising and rewriting once I finally finish my first draft.

We know no writer is created in a vacuum. Could you tell the readers about a teacher or a librarian who had an effect on your writing life?

Yes! When I was first considering writing for children, I asked the youth librarian at the public library in Verona, Wisconsin to point me towards a few of their most popular middle grade titles. Among others, she grabbed How They Croaked by Georgia Bragg. This nonfiction book was my first introduction to the world of FUNNY nonfiction, and it inspired me to write my first two books: Dung for Dinner and Waist-Deep in Dung. I wish I knew that librarian’s name so I could thank her for unknowingly giving me the inspiration I needed to just start writing.

A Bite Above the Rest ends with Caleb getting some worrying information. Can you give us a hint about what we can look forward to next from you?

Of course! As much as I’d love to revisit the world of Caleb and Tai and Samhain at some point—and I already have some ideas!—my next book is another standalone that I hope fans of A Bite Above the Rest will really love. Slated to come out in late 2025, it features a cast of ghostly main characters who attend Phantom Academy, a school for underaged ghosts. I also have a picture book coming out sometime in the next few years, but those details are still hush hush.

Christine Virnig is a fan of books, candy, spooky stories, poop jokes, and coffee…in no particular order. As a former physician, Christine now spends her days writing books, reading books, and working at a library where she is surrounded by books. Christine lives in southern Wisconsin with her husband, two daughters, a ridiculous number of dust bunnies, and one incredibly lazy cat. You can visit her on the web at ChristineVirnig.com.

A BITE ABOVE THE REST is out now and available for purchase here or at your favorite bookstore. You can follow Christine on at her website or on Instagram.

Are you ready for some Halloween fun? If so, let us know in the comments.

Filling the Gaps in Middle Grade

By Susan Koehler on August 19, 2024 / Oh MG News

The middle grade market has been a bit discouraging lately. Perhaps you read about The Middle Grade Slump in a recent Mixed-Up Files post. Well, we’re back to let you know about two gaps in the middle grade market that present an opportunity for authors.

According to agent Kelly Dyksterhouse of the Tobias Agency, “Right now there is a need for middle grade novels that bridge the gaps between age categories.” Dysterhouse identifies two areas where books are needed to help kids transition from one category to the next.

Early Middle Grade

According to Dyksterhouse, there is a need for “younger middle grade novels for readers who are ready to move on from chapter books but who might find the 40k+ word count that has become so common in middle grade intimidating.”

Does this sound familiar? It’s reminiscent of an opinion piece that appeared in Publisher’s Weekly about a year ago. Melissa Taylor, founder of the Imagination Soup blog, wrote an article titled “It’s Not Me, It’s You: The Argument for Shorter Middle Grade Books.”

According to Taylor, “When looking at a book with a lot of pages, children might be intimidated, they might prefer quicker stories, they might be struggling readers, and/or they might have attention issues, among other factors.”

Early middle grade literature might be just what these reluctant readers need. Tara Lazar recently featured PJ Gardner’s post Early Middle Grade Needs You, Says PJ Gardner on her blog. Gardner says that “Early Middle Grade is where we start to lose young readers, and I think that’s directly tied to the limited number of books aimed at them.”

Gardner encourages authors to think creatively about how they can target this early middle grade audience. She says these books should include straightforward stories told in 5,000-10,000 words. For Gardner, there are just two major keys – “create believable characters and craft dynamic plots.”

Think of popular series like Judy Moody, Dog Man, and Geronimo Stilton. These shorter, more concrete books can form a bridge between chapter books and traditional middle grade novels.

Upper Middle Grade

So, what’s the second gap in today’s middle grade market? Dyksterhouse says we need “upper middle grade novels for readers who are ready to engage with deeper themes, tougher subject matters and more complex stories but are not yet ready for the intensity of YA that has increasingly focused on characters aged 17-18+ and experiences they encounter.”

This may sound familiar. School Library Journal’s Teen Literary Toolbox recently highlighted the same need in a guest post by author and middle school language arts teacher Laurie Morrison. Morrison’s piece is titled “Why We Need More ‘Developmentally Relevant’ Upper MG Romance.”

Let’s pause for a moment and break down the term “developmentally relevant.” Morrison says she discovered this term when library media specialist Steve Tetreault posted it on social media. She immediately embraced it as an alternative to the term “age appropriate,” which can invoke a connotation of judgment.

For Morrison, the words “age appropriate” do not “honor the fact that two kids who are the same age will have completely different life experiences, perspectives, and comfort levels with different kinds of content, and it raises the question of who, exactly, gets to decide what’s appropriate.” So, what kinds of “developmentally relevant” books are we talking about?

Upper middle grade books target readers ages 10-14 whose interests have grown beyond the literature written for 8-to-12-year-olds but who aren’t quite ready for the culture and content of YA. Morrison says that kids in this range are hungry for books that are relevant to them.

Leslie Zampetti, literary agent and owner of Open Book Literary agrees. She reflects on her years as a librarian, when she met younger readers who sought genres similar to what their older siblings were reading. However, they wanted stories that were relevant to their experiences and situations.

“Conventional wisdom is that young readers prefer to ‘read up,’ focusing on older characters,” Zampetti acknowledges. “But my experience was that it’s more nuanced: often, confident and mature readers want to read up, and publishing tends to focus on those readers. Less confident or sophisticated readers want to read books with characters their own age, facing events and emotions new to them and similar to what they’re experiencing.”

Morrison echoes Zampetti. In her classroom, Morrison encounters a number of kids in the 11-14 age range who are eager to read romance novels. While most are not ready for YA literature, they crave romance tropes that are relevant to (and dare I say appropriate for?) their age and experience.

Morrison lists books like Nashae Jones’s Courtesy of Cupid, and Wendy Wan-Long Shang’s Bubble Trouble, as well as her own Keeping Pace, as examples of books that fit this much-needed niche.

Authors may be wondering if the publishing industry is as hungry for these upper-middle grade books as the young readers seem to be. According to Zampetti, yes. She affirms that “editors and agents are definitely looking for ‘developmentally relevant’ books, whether classified as upper middle grade or ‘middle school’ or young YA.”

Good News for Authors

If you’re a middle grade author who’s feeling a bit discouraged these days, take heart. You may want to start brainstorming some ideas for straightforward stories that would fit into the early middle grade category. Or perhaps you want to ponder ways some popular tropes can become relevant to upper middle grade readers.

The good news is that opportunity exists. There are gaps to be filled at both ends of the middle grade spectrum. By addressing the need for books that bridge the transitions into and out of middle grade, we just might be able to engage young readers and reverse the slump.

Join the Mixed Up Files — We are looking for a few good bloggers!

By Jennifer Swanson on August 16, 2024 / Articles

Hello to all of our amazing subscribers, readers, and fellow middle-grade children’s book enthusiasts!

THANK YOU for helping us to achieve:

#3 on the 100 Best Middle Grade Book Blogs and Websites in 2024 on Feedspot

https://books.feedspot.com/middle_grade_book_blogs/

A few fun facts:

The Mixed-Up Files blog has been running continuously for 12 YEARS, since 2012

During that time we have had almost 1.2 MILLION views

Our average views per month run between 6,000 and 10,000

We are constantly contacted by many trade publishers who request interviews for their authors

Our posts include:

Author interviews of exciting new trade and educational middle grade books (both fiction and nonfiction)
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We are looking for NEW BLOGGERS! This opportunity is open to authors, writers, teachers, librarians, or anyone who is excited about trade middle grade books. If you love talking about middle grade books, giving tips to authors, want to support the We Need Diverse Middle Grade team, or interview awesome agents and editors, WE NEED YOU!

Our bloggers are eligible to have their books highlighted in a new release post, a cover reveal, and even an interview post. And every post you write will be seen by thousands of people, too.

To Apply, please fill out the Google form Here –> https://forms.gle/hfZDPLBm1t8V2naKA

Let’s keep this blog going by continuing to shine the spotlight on everything that’s AWESOME about Middle Grade! A focus like this is needed more than ever!!

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