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My book "Finley" was intended to be YA lit, but it ended up working so much better as Middle Grade. My concern is that it might be too dark for the genre. I know dark books are all the rage in YA right now, but even books like Harry Potter were toned down in their earlier iterations for the middle grade market. But has it moved since then? Would that group buy into a contemporary fantasy that's meant to be allegorical to a dealing with depression?Any thoughts? Am I worrying too much about this?
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By middle grade I mean 11 - 15 age group. It could spill over into YA lit, but I tend to consider YA lit when the characters learn to become adults, so the characters in this are just a little young for that. It seems in line with the kind of stuff I remember reading at that age, and I don't think I'm an anomoly.I guess the real trick is to get someone to read the submission. So far only form rejects to the query, which means I have other problems to work through first.
Thanks for bringing up 'Dark Materials,' I hadn't really considered that (even though I've read it). So much these days when I hear middle grade I think Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Percy Jackson.
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