Mind the Middle: Middle Grade Fiction by the Numbers for the First Half of 2024
As we’re doing a deep dive into Middle Grade this year, I thought I would do a By the Numbers for MG. Today, I’m looking specifically at HARDBACK books that have a publication date of January 1st through June 30th of 2024. This does not include graphic novels, which are very popular with middle grade readers for sure but are a separate category. Nor does it include trade paperbacks because many of those will be reprints of titles previously published in hardback. I limited my search to all titles with an age range of 8-12, so there will be some outliers that may marketed as ages 7-12 or 10-14, but they are not included here.
Here’s what I came up with:
Total Number of MG Hardback titles for ages 8-12 from January 1st through June 30th: 396 titles
- Number of Titles Listed as HOT (meaning they had a high number of pre-orders): 14
- Number of Titles Listed as HIGH (meaning that had a pretty decent number of pre-orders): 45
- Number of titles listed as average: 35
- Number of titles listed as moderate: 95
Number of titles indicating they were the first or next title in a series: 180
Total cost if someone was to buy one of each title: $6.434.02
Subject Headings Deep Dive
I then wanted to see what subjects and genres each of the above titles fell into. This gives us a bit of information about what TYPES of books are being published for middle grade readers this year. It’s important to note that books have more than one subject in part because they are often about more than one thing. For example, a book can be a fantasy novel that also talks about family and friendship. Or it can be a science fiction novel that also talks about environmental issues.
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Here’s a breakdown of what the subject headings look like. I look at the first 2 main subject headings. The first is the primary subject heading, which means that the publisher is marketing the book as being primarily of this genre or about this topic. Then, I look at the second subject heading, which tells us a bit more about each title and what they are about.
The formatting of the below deep dive will look like this:
Main Subject Heading
Subheadings (if applicable)
- List of subheadings
Action/Adventure: 64
Subheadings
- Animals: 6
- Cars: 1
- Birds: 1
- Computers: 3
- Death & Dying: 3
- Disabilities: 1
- Disasters: 1
- Ecology: 1
- Family Life: 6
- Fantasy: 4
- Friendship: 12
- Historical: 1
- Humorous: 3
- Mystery: 2
- Science Fiction: 3
- Sports: 1
Animals: 6
Archeology: 10
Birds: 1
Business: 2
Climate/Weather: 1
Computers: 10
Cooking: 1
Dance: 1
Death and Dying: 2
Disabilities: 2
Diversity: 1
Ecology: 1
Emotions: 8
Subheadings
- Family: 2
- Friendship:3
Espionage: 1
Family Life: 39
Subheadings
- Death & Dying: 5
- Emotions: 7
- Friendship: 3
Fantasy: 10
Folklore: 1
Friendship: 23
Subheadings
- LGBTQIA+: 3
- Social Life: 3
General: 7
Health/Medicine Safety: 4
Historical: 26
Subheadings
- History, American: 3
- History, World: 2
Horror: 17
Subheadings
- Action: 4
- Humorous: 3
- Mystery/Detective: 2
- Occult: 5
Humorous: 23
Subheadings
- Action/Adventure: 8
- Friendship: 3
Insects/Spiders: 1
LGBTQIA+: 6
Mystery/Detective
Subheadings
- Action/Adventure: 6
- Business: 2
- Family: 4
- Friendship: 4
Mythology: 1
Neurodiversity: 3
Occult Fiction: 5
Pets: 8
Problem Novel: 1
Religious: 4
Subheadings
- Clothing: 1
- Judaism: 3
School Stories: 1
Science Fiction: 28
Subheadings
- Action/Adventure: 7
- Friendship: 4
Social Issues: 10
Social Life and Customs: 26
Subheadings
- Asian American Pacific Islander: 6
- Canada: 4
- Hispanic: 1
- United States: 1
Sports Stories: 13
Suspense/Thriller: 3
Theater: 2
Looking at the Ages of the Main Character
I then searched through all the annotations to see if they mentioned the age of the main characters. A lot of the time, they don’t. But when they did, the break down looked like this:
- Age 10: 107
- Age 11: 18
- Age 12: 35
Out of curiosity, I also did a search for HARDBACK YA titles and came up with a list of 757 titles. The recommended age break down looked like this:
- Listed as age 12-19: 263
- Listed as aged 14-19: 248
The YA books listed the age of the main character less in the annotations than the MG books did, but in those that did the break down of the main characters in the YA titles looked like this:
- Age 12: 8
- Age 13: 6
- Age 14: 12
- Age 15: 8
- Age 16: 27
- Age 17: 31
So if you are one of those people thinking wow, there aren’t as many books for 12-15 year olds, it’s probably not your imagination.
Books listed as Children’s grade 4-6/Ages 9-11 with the BISAC Heading JUVENILE FICTION/Love & Romance
One interesting thing I noticed the other day is that there were a couple of books that were listed solidly as middle grade that mentioned being a love story. In the past, I believe those books would have been young YA. But as YA ages up, it is creating a vacuum and I believe that MG is similarly ageing up to fill it. Don’t get me wrong, upper elementary and middle school kids definitely have crushes and some first flirtations with dating so it is by no means age inappropriate. It’s just part of the market and categories shifting that I think we are seeing.
I always find these deep dives fascinating and useful. For example, if someone were to complain that a library isn’t buying enough of a certain type of book, it’s helpful to be able to demonstrate that it’s not bias on the library’s part, but a reflection of what is being published. I also find it helpful in just helping me make sure I am working to build as comprehensive and balanced of a collection as possible.
I gave a lot of caveats at the beginning of this post, and they are important. As we move throughout the year and get closer to May and June, more books will come up on that search. And I used one particular library vendor, if I were to use a different one I would find some additional titles and some of the titles in this search would drop off. Each vendor can provide different search results, which is why at the library that I work at during the day we use two.
I hope you find this deep dive interesting and some food for thought. In a few weeks, I’ll be doing the same for YA.
Filed under: Middle Grade, Middle Grade Fiction, Mind the Middle, Mind the Middle Project
About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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