[COLD OPEN] We're hungry for stories that speak to our souls and hearts and make us laugh and cry, and that seems to be really in demand, especially now.
[MUSIC, INTRO] This is The Book of Life, a show about Jewish kidlit, mostly. I'm Heidi Rabinowitz. I love middle grade fiction. I mean, I love all children's literature, but the books that appeal to me most consistently are novels aimed at preteen readers: long enough to immerse myself in but less angsty than a lot of young adult literature. When I interviewed Steve Sheinkin in the July 2024 episode of this podcast, he talked about your spiritual age rather than your biological age, and he said that spiritually, he's about 12 or 13. I'd say I'm probably about 9 or 10 years old in terms of the books that I respond to with the most love. Speaking as a grownup again, when I read Karen Jensen's Treatise on the State of Middle Grade and Young Adult Publishing Today on her Teen Librarian Toolbox blog on School Library Journal, I was super impressed with the level of detail in her research, but also alarmed at the many difficulties she described facing middle grade books right now. I interview middle grade authors pretty frequently on The Book of Life, but I decided it was time to think about the genre as a whole and to do what I could to give it my support. So I invited Karen to talk with me, as well as middle grade author Chris Baron, a fellow member of the Jewish Kidlit Mavens, and one of the founding members of the Facebook group For the Love of Middle Grade. You will find links to everything we talked about, Karen and Chris's websites, reading suggestions, a transcript, and more at bookoflifepodcast.com, where you can also leave a comment or email me to let me know about your favorite Jewish middle grade books.
Karen and Chris, welcome to The Book of Life.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I've gathered you here today to discuss middle grade literature. So Karen and Chris, can you each take a moment to tell us about your own relationship to middle grade books?
So I have been a public librarian for 31 years, primarily serving teens, but a lot of times young teens, and that often involves middle grade literature. It's that kind of sweet spot.
As a dad, I've been reacquainted with middle grade fiction, which is the literature of my heart, that changed my life, that showed me how to understand things, and also, as a professor in the English department for 25 years, it is the literature that my college students talk about the most. It's like this critical point for them, that they, they remember the books they read that we would qualify now is middle grade.
Oh, that's really interesting. Well, I wanted to ask you both, why is middle grade important to you, to readers, to the world?
I just wanted to piggyback on something that Chris just said, how even his adult students remember that. I read this thing about music in the life of teens that talked about how the songs that you listen to 14, it's something about your emotional development and your social development, like those are the ones that kind of solidify in your mind. You'll always remember those songs, and when you hear them, they bring you back to that, that time period. And I think it's also true of literature.
I love what you're saying, Karen, about that, because middle grade, it's this, like, frozen-in-time moment. It is this place where hope is really abounding, but the hardships of life are becoming more real. And middle grade literature processes us through those things. It's a shared experience that we have. When I do, like, a school visit, I go to talk about books I've written, but if I show the books I loved as a kid and some classic books, kids in the audience will go, wow, me too. And it's pretty astounding that I'm, you know, a little bit older than them, and I tell them, like, we share this common language of this book. We've read this book together in a way, and it's pretty amazing.
I just realized we probably should define what we mean when we say middle grade. The simple answer is, it's books for kids between ages 8 and 12. Is there more to it than that?
Middle grade is such a range. I've met 8 year olds who are reading books that 14 year olds are reading. It just really depends on the reader. So I think it's really wide open, but I think there is a level of, this isn't the right word, but I would say almost like safety to middle grade. There's hope in it, that there's light, yet still maintaining the truth of a situation. So I think middle grade books can be almost like a safe harbor for those who assign them, for librarians to know: it's a middle grade book so it was made with extra care. I'd like to believe that that's part of it.
This is a beautiful definition.
Young Adult actually used to be defined as 12 to 18. Now it's kind of more 14 to 19, and middle grade is more like 8 to 12. And then there's kind of like, okay, but what about the 13 year olds? And it depends, too, on the strength of the reader. I have a daughter, she's a freshman in high school now. She has dyslexia. For a really long time, she was not the strongest reader. You want to have books for kids like her and her peers, that they feel comfortable carrying around, because they don't want to be seen with a baby book or whatever. You know, not all readers read the same level at the same time, so there's just all these different factors that go into it. And it's, to me, it's just fascinating. That's probably why I'm a librarian.
It is fascinating. I love hearing you talk about it.
Karen, you had written an article in School Library Journal that was kind of the state of middle grade literature. So I'd like to get both of your opinions about that.
Several years ago, Scholastic started talking about the Decline by Nine. How, like, there was a real drop off of independent reading among nine year olds. And then there was a recent study that came out, I believe, from the National Education Association. And they talked about, again, that drop off in independent reading, and reading for pleasure, in this age group. And at the same time you saw this happening, major bookstores, particularly like Barnes and Noble, were seeing a real sales decline. They announced they were making a change in how they were selling the books, pulled a lot of the middle grade fiction off the shelves, except for stuff that was selling really well, like obviously your Dog Man books and your Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. So that makes it harder for kids and parents to find and discover those books. At the same time, we're seeing reading test scores decline. So it's all kind of this big chaos, all of it feeding into each other and reinforcing some of the same issues, like, if we want kids to be better readers and read for fun, we need to be giving them more books and making it easier for them to find.
Karen, I love that article, by the way. I've read it a few times, and referred to it. So thank you for working on that. Seemed like a lot of research. I come at it from a writer's perspective. It is kind of easy as an author to get very caught up in publishing, marketplace. So I just really try to focus on writing the best story I can and be influenced by the young readers I meet, also the older readers I meet, the librarians I talk to, and let that influence the state of middle grade for me. There's issues because of approaches in education, but I just think there's a lot of kids out there who are reading and want books and want stories. So I think the state of middle grade, from a business perspective, ebbs and flows, like maybe there was a big moment and now it's declining and it'll come back. But I know from the readers I meet and from the people I talk to that we're hungry for stories that speak to our souls and hearts and make us laugh and cry, and that seems to be really in demand, especially now.
Does middle grade face particular challenges that are different from picture books or young adult literature?
I think it does, especially in the current political climate, where we're seeing lots of challenges about books. There's this push and pull, because these kids get into adolescence, thinking about who you are, your place in the world, and what the world is like, and just dealing with issues that not all adults are comfortable talking with children about.
An adult just goes and buys a book. They either finish it or don't, or pass it on or don't, but kids are often given the books. And so the challenge is the gatekeepers. There is such a wide variety of parents, cultures, approaches, that interfere. I see that as a parent, you know, I'm like desperate to keep my kids safe, so I actually empathize with that feeling.
Babies, toddlers, early elementary school, their parents take them to the library. They help them navigate the collections. They help them select books. Teens are much more independent. They're very active on BookTok and social media. And then you have these middle grade readers, and we don't have the same means to reach them and let them know about books. Part of the problem right now is helping kids find the books.
Do you think that the book banning movement is impacting middle grade differently than other age groups?
I think it's important to note that it doesn't impact all kids the same, because not all kids are the same. And when you look at the type of books that are often being challenged and banned, in schools particularly, they're talking about diverse books. They're talking about books with LGBTQ representation. So obviously it's more harmful to people who identify as part of that population. Because one of the problems with banning those types of books is it also sends the message that these particular types of kids might be wrong or whatever. And you also have the problem that some of those kids who are already fighting with processing who they are in a world that's like this, internalizing some of those harmful messages, it just makes the world inherently more unsafe for those types of kids.
Yeah.
Does Jewish middle grade literature face challenges that are different from other diverse forms of middle grade?
I think there are unique challenges to every group of people, different ethnicities, different cultures. Right now being Jewish is very politically charged and faces challenges that I haven't seen in my own lifetime. In a climate like this, and in a time like this, I think Jewish writers are facing their own unique challenges on talking about the hopes and dreams of their lives, things their family cares about. For example, if they are from Israel, they care about Israel. They care about their Jewish upbringing, their history. It's difficult to talk about that kind of thing right now. And asking yourself, as a Jewish writer, no matter what you think, what responsibility do I have in this current climate as I write this story?
I am not Jewish, but as a librarian who has purchased books for many, many years for many different library systems. I would like there to be far more books that talk about the Jewish identity that aren't centered in the Holocaust. And I'd like us librarians to do a better job of centering those books. Just as a side note, people say, like, it's challenging sometimes, as a person outside of a population to find those books and buy those books and have faith that they do a good job representing a culture in a way that honors and respects something that you have not a lot of personal knowledge about.
I'm just really emotional about that, what you just said. And I'm sorry, just... Because what you're saying is so important, and I often forget that, you know, as kind of being immersed in a lot of Jewish stories. So thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that.
Yeah, and I have to say I am so happy to hear a non-Jewish librarian seeing the same thing that I'm seeing about the preponderance of Holocaust books as the main representation of Jewish life. I've spoken at great length for a long time about this problem. So I'm so happy that you recognized it without me telling you, that, that you just saw it on your own. That's very heartening. I also want to say that I have compiled many resources to help in exactly the kind of situation you're talking about, for people who aren't necessarily sure if it's good representation or not. There's actually an entire guide I created, published through the Association of Jewish libraries, that's aimed mostly at public and school librarians, for evaluating the Jewish representation in children's literature. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Karen, tell us about the project Mind the Middle on the Teen Librarian Toolbox blog. I know you're very heavily involved in young adult literature, so why focus on middle grade?
We always try to do a project every year that focuses on an element of librarianship. And as I saw these shifting dynamics in both young adult literature and middle grade literature, it became very evident to me that a lot of middle grade is now what we would have called younger YA say, 10 years ago, so it does actually fit right into the wheelhouse of what we do at Teen Librarian Toolbox. But I was also reading the literature and the studies and all the press that we talked about earlier, with the sales and the decline and stuff, so I really wanted to just highlight it. I also just think that middle grade literature is universal. Like not everybody loves to read YA. Some people age out of it, or some people are too young for it, but middle grade, like, you can sit and read that together as a family. I, as an adult, love to pick up a middle grade book and read it. When my family travels we'll listen to a middle grade audio book together in the car. So many of the YA authors that I followed for years, a lot of them are writing middle grade now. I just wanted to support the authors, support the kids. Right place, the right time, I just felt like this was the right project for this year.
All right, thank you. Chris, tell us about the Facebook group For the Love of Middle Grade.
It's very new. Jenni Walsh, the author, invited me to join in, and I was like, yes! There was such a strong kidlit community over on Twitter for a long time, where authors and librarians, teachers, educators, could get together and talk about the things that we love and have all kinds of hashtag things that we can all get behind, and that faded a lot as it got worse over there. It does seem to be coming back a little bit. Anyway, but for the Facebook group, it was just a chance to gather everyone together and build community. And I really feel like middle grade is just all about community and supporting each other, and it's not competitive. It's like we're all in it for this, I mean, I know it sounds a little cheesy, but like this higher purpose to help kids, to help each other, to work together. So that's really the idea of the group, is to be able to share what authors are doing, what librarians are doing, asking questions, sharing articles, connecting, creating contacts, networking with this like, really good intentioned hope and focus for gathering community together that could be like minded.
We've been talking about the gatekeepers, that it's hard to reach the middle grade readers directly. So is there something we can do to reach those gatekeepers more effectively? Or are there other ways to reach the kids more directly? Like, how do we break through this barrier?
One of the things that I will say is that some kidlit creators who have mass appeal for this age group are doing a really good job. Like, I will give all the kudos in the world to Rick Riordan. He developed this franchise and got kids excited, and he took all that power and he uses it to publish and lift up other authors, and he very deliberately promotes diverse authors. Dav Pilkey, who did the Dog Man series and the Cat Comic series, I just saw an announcement that he was putting up Little Free Libraries in every state. James Patterson, who publishes for all ages, he's spent a lot of his personal time and money also promoting kidlit. So you have these people who have appeal to that age group. Jason Reynolds was recently the past couple of years, um, like the...
I know what you're talking about: National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.
Yes. He writes amazing literature, and he goes out and he talks to kids. He's an amazing speaker. School librarians and public librarians who are in there day to day and just slowly building relationships with these kids. School visits. Having authors come in and do school visits is a very powerful tool.
From an author perspective, I love going to schools. Kids always surprise me. You know, I always see the kid in the back row who acts like he's not paying attention, but that's always the kid who comes up at the end and asks me a really serious question. So I think, as an author, being present is the best thing that I can do. You know, I want to try to connect as much as possible, to get the word out that books are cool, that books tell the stories of so many kinds of people. There's a lot of middle grade authors that work together. I'm part of a group called Mighty Middle Grade Authors, and there's Middle Grade Authorcade, and the purpose of those groups is to just reach more people. So I think there's a great effort out there.
That's encouraging! Chris, you write middle grade fiction yourself, so go ahead and tell us about your books.
Sure! I like to write novels in verse. All of Me and The Magical Imperfect, and then some books in prose: The Gray and The Secret of the Dragon Gems. Dealing with difficult, challenging issues, but that provide that kind of hope that we've just been talking about. And I like to write books that speak to the life I've lived, fictionalized. I remember the LA Times called All of Me the "fictional retelling of Baron's life," and I love that, it was like a gift they gave me. Because I think we write the stories that we've lived, and then we tell those truths. And so, you know, characters that come from Jewish backgrounds, maybe it's not the centering thing in their life, but that's just who they are, and family history is a big part of it. Then most recently, we got to edit that anthology On All Other Nights, which has been a really fun project. So I feel like, as a kid, I was really moved by stories that took risks to go a little deeper. I mean, I love things that are funny, of course, I love humor, but I also want to, like go for it, and try to write the books that tell stories of the heart, and that's particularly why I like to write in verse, because I think verse can speak to the internal landscape of a character. I always say, if you ask a kid, how was your day, they always say, "Good. Fine." But there is just so much beneath that that they are experiencing. And I like to think writing books that tell the story behind that one word answer,
Why is it important to you to represent Jewish identity in your writing?
I think Jewish values and Jewish worldview is so powerful, but primarily it's just what I know. So it's what I've grown up with and what I've lost and what I've regained in my life. So, you know, I write from who I am. It's just part of who the characters are, regardless of the story. And I also try to, you know, in the stories to have characters who are more maybe observant, like Aunt Ruthie in The Gray who's very observant, really tied in. There's the grandfather in The Magical Imperfect, but then there's the father struggling with his faith in The Magical Imperfect as well. And so how does a kid react to what's being modeled for them? That's an important part of being a middle grader, and I love to write stories that wrestle with that, because I think it's important for kids to make their own choices, and books are a great way to process that journey.
I'd like to ask you to talk a little bit more about your most recent book, this anthology of Passover stories, On All Other Nights.
Yeah, I mean, it's really a labor of love and joy with Naomi Milliner and Joshua Levy. We became friends in our debut year of our debut novels, mine was All of Me, Seventh Grade Vs. the Galaxy and The Jake Show. And we met at the Highlights Foundation, and we just had always been talking about collaborating and doing projects together. We talked a lot about Passover in particular, and the idea of, how do kids react at a seder. It's often a long process and not always completely understood. So what about telling stories from each step of the seder, that could kind of be a companion to haggadah, and then we were able to put an explanation of that step of the seder and then some questions that maybe a family could read together. And so what we've ended up with is a book of just such a diverse range of story and genre that go with each step, just overjoyed with the contributors who wrote such strong stories, Adam Gidwitz and Laurel Snyder, Ruth Behar, and it has been one of the hardest processes, working together, but so much joy and fun and I've learned so much. We really hope this book will appeal to Jewish people, but to non-Jewish people, like any family who observes traditions and understands the importance and the sacred nature of gathering and remembering, commemorating, can find themselves in the book.
Beautiful, and mazel tov on this new book!
Thank you so much. We're really excited.
Karen, you are a librarian, and you've also authored a librarianship handbook, as we talked about you run this blog. So what projects of your own would you like us to know about?
The Teen Librarian Toolbox: We have tons of posts every day happening, highlighting middle grade. I have some upcoming articles I'm working on for School Library Journal. And I'm going to be moderating a panel at the North Texas Teen Book Festival about middle grade horror with R.L. Stine.
Ooh!
Wow.
Super excited about that. Several other authors, but R.L. Stine!
Awesome. Are there any particular can't-miss middle grade books that either of you want to shout out right now?
Hands down, one of my favorites is A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd. It's just this beautiful, heartwarming family story with just a snicker of magic. And it's got all the quirkiness of a small town and siblings and parents and new friends and new adventures, and you just can't go wrong.
Tell me the title again?
A Snicker of Magic, like a Snickers bar.
Great! Chris?
I just read R.M. Romero's Tale of the Flying Forest. I don't even think it's out yet, I had a chance to blurb it, but it is so phenomenal. It's one of my favorite authors, and this one is particularly lyrical and captures such a powerful middle grade voice that I just think readers will be really, really drawn in. So Tale of the Flying Forest by R.M. Romero is, I think, the best work so far by that author.
Wow.
Yeah.
Her earlier books have been Jewish themed. Is that true for this book as well?
Yes, yes, and magic, and it's just done so well. It's fantastic.
We'll look forward to that. It's Tikkun Olam Time. So I want to ask each of you, what action would you like to call listeners to take to help heal the world? Karen, do you want to go first?
I do not.
Chris, do you want to go first?
I wanted just to read something short, if that's okay. I was thinking something to repair the world would be little more silence and a little more listening right now. And so I thought of Chaim Potok's The Chosen. And there's this quote that I just wanted to read that I think captures it. "I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and dimension all its own. You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't always talk. Sometimes, sometimes it cries. And you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then, but you have to."
That's beautiful. Karen, what action would you like to call listeners to take to help heal the world?
Well, staying on the theme of reading, I would like everybody to go to the library and pick out a book they thought they would never, ever read about someone they've never met, at a place they can't imagine ever visiting, and just sitting with it and letting it really speak to their heart.
I love that.
That's awesome.
Thank you. Is there anything else that you want to talk about that I haven't thought to ask you?
I had an addendum about the challenges of middle grade literature, about why we see, like, this Decline by Nine and why kids are choosing less to read for fun. A lot of people have been talking about the way we teach reading in school. And I'm not a teacher. It's important to know that, but I obviously engage with a lot of teachers, and I am a parent, and I think there is some important truth to this. And it's been fascinating for me to see it from that parent perspective. My kids don't even really read full books in school anymore. They might read an excerpt. My youngest child, as I've mentioned, is dyslexic, and I remember the fourth grade, she had this sheet. She had to read a book in all these different categories, and I had to sign off on it. Every day, we would fight about it, screaming, fighting, "I hate you, I hate reading, I hate myself, I'm so stupid." And part of it was ability, but part of it was also interest, because one of them would be like, read a historical fiction book, you know? And after a couple of months of doing this, I thought to myself, Karen, what are you doing? This kid is gonna hate reading, and she might actually hate you and herself. So I wrote this letter to her teachers, and I was like, Look, we're not doing this assignment. I'm like, I will make sure she reads every day. I will verify to you that she's reading, but I'm not having these knock down, drag out fights about reading, because the only thing it's gonna do is make or hate reading.
I have to just affirm this so much, because my college students, like my English 101 freshman first semester students, when I tell them, "yeah, pick a book to read, any book that brings you joy or that looks interesting," they just are beside themselves, like "I can pick a book?!" Like it's out of the culture that they've been raised in, and there's this like sudden freedom that intimidates them. What you just described is the story that I hear from those students. I'm really glad you brought it up, because I worked for years in education reform talking about this very issue, how do we meet standards, but also allow for freedom in reading and joy. So it's really, really important.
Well, and what both of you are saying is reminding me of a fascinating podcast series that I listened to that's actually about the mechanics of learning to read. The series was called Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong. It was on American Public Media. It's so good, but so disturbing, because apparently, the methods that we've been using for decades have been proven to not be effective. We're doing it wrong. So then, if kids can't actually process the letters in front of them, how are they going to enjoy reading?
I just actually listened to that podcast a couple months ago. It's so brilliant. It was very interesting and informative.
I can't wait to listen to it. Thank you for sharing that.
I will say we've always known. I mean, I've been a librarian for 30 years. You know, we're told time and time again that the number one thing that gets kids reading and enjoying reading is giving them choice, and yet so much of that choice is constantly being taken from them in so many different ways, whether it be time, opportunity, access, literally having books removed from the classrooms and the schools, we're just continually taking away those choices. But we know that that's the number one thing they need to become confident readers who read independently of their own free will, just for fun.
Yeah.
You know, you gave your Tikkun Olam suggestions, but in a sort of more concrete way, is there anything in particular that listeners can do? The listeners are readers, librarians, authors, book lovers. Is there anything that all of us can do to support the genre of middle grade?
As a public librarian, I will say, go to your local library. Sign up for a library card. Use your library card. When you have something positive to say, send a letter to the children's librarian, to the director of that library. Do the same thing for your schools. Go to board meetings. One of the things we need more than ever right now is people speaking up and fighting for children's reading, libraries, school libraries. We need people standing up against these very vocal book banners and saying our kids have the right to read what they want and need to read. And even if you think that book's not right for your kid, you don't get to decide that for mine.
That's so important, and it's often just one or two people who are the ones that need to be stood up against. And I'll just add just to review books, to request them at the library, at the bookstore, those things do matter, because it gets the books out there into the networks that need to be in. And so if you read a book and you liked it, sharing about that book with others in your reading groups, sharing a book at your table at dinner, those little things can add up to really, really important movement for a lot of books out there.
If you are a parent listening to this and you're wondering, how you can get your kid to read, make sure they see you reading. Make sure you have books in your house, and if you can, again, take them to the library or a Little Free Library. Or, honestly, like my kids, if we go to the store, I'm not buying them anything, unless they say, Will you get me a book? I try to never say no.
Same thing, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I'm not gonna buy you that toy. I'm not gonna buy you that candy bar. And my kids will go, can we go look at the books? I'm like, yes!
Exactly. Yeah.
Thank you. It's great to have some actionable suggestions. Where can listeners learn more about each of you and your work?
If you would like to read more, I share way too much on TeenLibrarianToolbox.com, talking about my life as a librarian, the books that we're reading, my kids... TeenLibrarianToolbox.com.
Probably the best place would be my website, which is ChrisBaron.com. I try to write an intermittent newsletter. I also have a little hashtag called #HopefulFarmer. Try to raise chickens and grow things, and this is a later in life thing, but I'm really enjoying it.
Chris Baron, Karen Jensen, thank you so much for speaking with me.
Thank you so much for having us.
Thank you so much. This was a great conversation. I was very honored to be a part of it.
Me too.
[MUSIC, TEASER] Next time on The Book of Life podcast, an encore presentation of my 2020 series, "The Mitzvah of Voting," with all three parts streamlined into a single episode. Some of your favorite authors will give inspiring suggestions for keeping our democracy healthy. If you want to do what you can to repair the world, please vote!
[MUSIC, OUTRO] Say hi to Heidi at 561-206-2473 or bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com Check out our Book of Life podcast Facebook page, or our Facebook discussion group Jewish Kidlit Mavens. We are occasionally on Twitter too @bookoflifepod. Want to read the books featured on the show? Buy them through Bookshop.org/shop/bookoflife to support the podcast and independent bookstores at the same time. You can also help us out by becoming a monthly supporter through Patreon. Additional support comes from the Association of Jewish Libraries, which also sponsors our sister podcast, Nice Jewish Books, a show about Jewish fiction for adults. You'll find links for all of that and more at BookofLifePodcast.com Our background music is provided by the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band. Thanks for listening and happy reading!
[MUSIC, PROMO] We start in a familiar place in contemporary Chicago, where Jennifer, a museum curator, is asked to go to Belarus to create a living installation of Jewish life there before the Holocaust. She invites a distant cousin to participate, and she brings with her an old Yiddish literary magazine to use as a prop in the installation. In each chapter of this book, we move backward in time. As the settings become less familiar to us, we see the cousin relationships getting closer, and see that there's a poem in the journal that's directed at three brothers in the family. Triplets had been separated at a young age. To find out why and what the poem has to do with it, we must travel back further in time. Join me on this journey of Our Little Histories by Janice Weizman, at JewishLibraries.org/NiceJewishBooks.
