Middle-grade fiction ideas needed!!!

[-GRCR-]

@esther-c

I don’t read middle-grade either, sorry… heh.

I do agree with everything the other have said though. Especially the less bad family relationships. It feels like the world is full of that, it’d be cool to see more loving siblings and such.

Random thought. It’d also be cool to read a book that has no love-y setups, period. I haven’t read a lot to know if MG has a bunch of that in it anyway, but if there was a completely clean “boy and girl are just friends with no crushy thoughts” book, I think that would be amazing…

 

If you pluck them, they explode. Goro.

[Trailblazer]

@theducktator

Yeah for real. My group of middle school girls ironically happens to be mostly homeschooled, but one of the other leaders has a group that is mostly public schoolers, and you can clearly see the difference. Quite often, I’ll come away from our small group time encouraged by the fact that my girls were sharing testimonies of things God is doing in their lives, and the other leader is like, “Getting them to answer questions about the teaching is like pulling teeth.” Pretty much all the public schoolers have phones and are preoccupied with boys and drama at school; some of my girls have phones, but those that do have more limitations on what they use them for, and they’re not distracted by their phones during small group time. I know they think about boys and have had a few friendship struggles, which is normal for that stage of their life, but I’m continually amazed at the way that they seek God in the midst of that.

I definitely believe God wants to move in the public schools (and I’m seeing Him do that here where I live), and I also feel that He’s going to call some homeschoolers who have had a firm foundation at home to go into the public schools as a mission field (that’s also my story). But at the same time, unless God specifically tells me to put my kids in a public school, I will definitely be homeschooling them!

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

[Elishavet Elroi]

@theducktator

I would say keep any gender issues out of MG. I was reading MG at 7ish, and my parents never told me about any of that stuff until I was a teen. Finding out about it, even from a Biblical perspective, would have traumatized tiny me.

That’s a valid point! What I meant is illustrated anyway in a decent book. Have your characters behave like they should. I would love to see a book that had a tomboy girl MC that could still be a lady even if she climbed trees. The thing with children’s literature – and really most good literature – is that the strongest points are often made subtly.

On the flip side, I was disgusted as a young reader whenever a girl disguised herself as a guy or vice versa. Sometimes it was done for “humor’s” sake, sometimes so a character could escape in a dangerous historical setting, but now I wonder at the hidden implications some of the more worldly books might have held. If the world is putting its agendas in kid’s books, we should be counteracting that. (daughter of a librarian talking here)

This is just one of many points that could be woven into a book, and most points are addressed without stating them outrightly.

You have listened to fears, child. Come, let me breathe on you... Are you brave again? -Aslan

[Author]

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