Laurel Snyder

Often, people I love refer to my books as “young adult.”  This is usually because the nice person in question is old enough that they remember books like A Wrinkle in Time being classified as YA.  Or Dicey’s Song. Or something like that.

I remember that too! Basically, when I was a kid, anything that was older than Frog and Toad was called YA.

But a lot has changed over the last few decades.  YA has changed.  Nowadays, YA tends to be older, darker. There is usually kissing (EWWWWWWWW! KISSING!)  in it somewhere. There is sometimes sex (SEX? What’s THAT?).  Increasingly, a YA novel has at least one vampire/dark faerie/ fallen angel.  YA books tend to be inward looking. I’ve blogged about this before.

Of course, there are tons of amazing YA books (and YA blogs)  out there, but I don’t write them. I write MG, or Middle-grade.  I write for kids.  Like, KIDS!  I write for girls who don’t yet shave their legs.  Boys who still build forts.  (I hope).

Well, just in case you still need clarification, I have GREAT NEWS!   Now there’s a place on the web where a slew of us middle-graders are hanging out together. Offering book lists and blog posts, interviews, and news from the publishing world.   We’re hoping that our group site, From the Mixed Up Files, will become a resource for people who serve the needs of KIDS!

You know, KIDS!  Remember them?  They’re the short people with stars in their eyes.  The ones in the sprinkler outside your window.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.