Puberty and sex in upper middle grade.

The only novel I've seen deal with male puberty got kicked to YA without a second thought. And it was about 13-year-old superheroes.

I don't think this would work as MG. Mostly because it really doesn't sound like a kid. Even in a epic fantasy world.

I agree that it doesn't really sound like a Middle Grade protagonist. Also, Middle Grade is for middle schoolers, and honestly, they feel extremely awkward about puberty and the things that come with it. Even in early high school, it's uncomfortable.

I've read some very innocent budding relationships in middle grade, where there's hand-holding and maybe even a chaste kiss. The boys might start to look at girls differently, but there isn't a lot of detail about this.

Okay For Now is a good example (and a great book) although it's realistic fiction, not fantasy.

Honestly, that doesn't sound at all like an MG protagonist. It sounds like a very well-educated, fully grown protagonist with a college degree.

Jamesaritchie said:

Honestly, that doesn't sound at all like an MG protagonist. It sounds like a very well-educated, fully grown protagonist with a college degree.

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I agree with Jamesaritichie, but at the same time, don't feel like you need to "dumb it down." Spend some time with middle schoolers if possible. If not, try reading more MG. They generally don't talk like that. It sounds even more sophisticated than a YA protagonist.

I just want to clarify that middle grade is not for middle schoolers. Middle grade is for ages 8-12, give or take. Upper MG may reach 14.

This has a lot of self awareness for the age group and a vocabulary beyond what many kids this age would use. Kids might know the words, but comprehension and usage aren't the same.

There are few topics that can't be handled in middle grade books. It's about how you handle it. So budding sexuality is okay - specific references to both heads may not be. They also make your character sound more YA. Ask a librarian for middle grade fiction with puberty as a theme. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is one. It's pretty old at this point but still has a solid readership. Reading these books will help you see how the topic is handled while giving you more of a sense of a middle grade vs. YA voice.

An Amazon advanced search of keywords puberty and fiction turns up mostly non-fiction and Judy Blume, but if you keep scrolling through you'll get fiction about a boy MC too. Here's a place to start. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553494287/?tag=absowrit-20

13 and 14 year olds dealing with sexual feelings sounds much more like YA than MG to me.

I agree that the voice sounds like an adult reflecting on childhood rather than a child. Perhaps you have an adult book with a young protagonist?

Best of luck!

The situation you describe sounds more YA than MG personally. Sexual topics are always tough to determine without context. While it is quite common for kids that age to develop crushes and the like, moving further than that I would generally say is too advanced for MG readers.

I don't write children's fiction, but I'm going to chime in as a parent of two girls aged (almost) 13 and 9. They are voracious readers who guzzle down fantasy, adventure and sci-fi. IMHO, your protagonist does not sound the age you want to portray, but like an adult male. Please do not take this the wrong way, but I would be very upset if either of my daughters read this book and your MC is talking about thinking with his 'head', referring to his penis. 'The big head, the little head and variations of this popular euphemism. Whatever. It's just...crude for their ages.

Now, I am not a prude and there are birds and bees, and many parents with middle age children (at the higher end of middle-age) are tackling puberty, sex-ed and related issues. IMHO what you've written as it stands is too low brow for my daughters to read and you bet I would complain to the school librarian, the public library, the book shop, the publisher if this book were classified as middle grade. E.g., there is a book called Eon:Rise of the Dragon Eye which was mis-classified by our local library as middle-grade. It sure as hell is not. My girls took out this book, unfortunately, and when they started asking us weird questions about older men and younger girls, we freaked out until we got to the bottom of where this was coming from. It's a great book, but there's a very uncomfortable paedophile-like relationship insinuation between a teenager MC and her 'master'. Unappropriate for their age group and you betcha I made a huge fuss about it at the library and they re-classified as YA! So, what I'm saying in this long-winded way is that it might be a good idea to bear in mind the parents of the age group you are writing for. If you have kids think of what you'd be comfortable with your 9 - 12/13 year old reading etc. Tricky, with a subject like puberty. Sorry, and I don't mean to come across in a negative way, but as it stands and IMHO what you wrote is not middle grade, and not for my girls.

13-14 is the lower end of YA, rather than the upper end of MG. Maybe a bit like Judy Blume's Then Again, Maybe I Won't, which was about a junior high school boy (12-13, I think) who was starting to go through puberty (and there was a definite focus on his sexual feelings, concern about unwanted erections and so on, though the language was subtle). This book was in the 70s, though, when the current marketing categories and cutoff between MG and YA may not have been in place. Nowadays, I believe, you're supposed to keep sex and swearing out of MG, but you can have it in YA, and the cutoff age for MG/YA is around 12/13. The degree of explicitness will depend on your target age, and also on the publisher's guidelines.