Chapter Two: Divisions of Young People's Literature

Chapter Two. Divisions of Young People’s Literature

The different division of young people’s literature are four: Children’s Literature, Middle Grade/Tween, Young Adults, and New Adults.

The children literature covers the age span of 0-8 and includes books that wordless picture books, regular picture books, easy readers, illustrated chapter books, and early chapter books.

The middle school division age span is from 8-13 (the tween phase). This division can be broken down into two different categories 8-12 which would fall under middle grade and 11-13 which is middle school.

In selecting for this division, we must be careful because what an 8 year old might find fascinating, for a 13 year old it could be too “childish” and what a 13 year old might find exciting, an 8 year old might not be mentally mature for it. People get confused with these age groups because despite the fact that there is only a 5 year gap between them, it makes a world of difference. You want kids to read and not lose their innocence and teenagers to not get bored with what they read.

The topics must be reviewed carefully so as to not categorize incorrectly because of sexual content and of course, language.

The young adult age span is from 13=18 and this is the stage where topics and interests start getting a little hotter and you have to choose wisely because during these ages the youth get curious and confused and have questions and sometimes they find comfort in reading about other teens with similar issues as the ones they face.

The new adults division age span is from 18-30. So I stopped being a new adult almost seven years ago! I love the description of this age group because there really isn’t a limit as to what is appropriate and what is not. It depends, obviously, on personal interests. The topics are limitless but I suppose to that it is safe to say that the books that fall under this age category have no filters.

It is crucial to categorize these division in evaluating YA Lit because for obvious reasons, you don’t want to include a book for 13 year olds under middle grade. We don’t want to turn off young readers from reading because of a bad reading experience due to misclassification.