Kids as beta readers

SuperKate

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Hi all,
So, I'm getting pretty close to the end of my edits now, and am thinking through how I want to handle the beta reading. I have a few grown-ups lined up (speak up if you'd be willing to read, as well - I'd love more input). My target audience is 8-10YO girls, and I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood with a group of girls who have been in a book club for the past few years, and so they have experience reading critically and discussing their thoughts on what they've read.

I'm trying to decide how to do this. Should I have the adults read first, figuring they're more likely to spot and be able to articulate the bigger issues, and then have the girls read once I feel confident it's pretty well there? Have everyone read at the same time, figuring it's useful information if all the adults have a problem with something, but none of the kids do? If it matters, I've had a critique group throughout the drafting process, so I don't think there are humongous holes (though who knows??).

Also, any ideas on getting good feedback from kids? I've heard the idea to ask kids to go through the ms marking A, B or C in the text for Awesome, Boring or Confusing. Any other tips?

Finally, for those who have used kids as beta readers, I'd love to hear anything about how the experience went for you and any advice you have.

Thanks in advance!
 

alleycat

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Your potential young readers may be different since they are in a book club and used to discussing books, but I haven't had much luck with having kids read and comment on a story. I get back the typical "Yeah, it was good. I liked it." I think they hold back because they are smart enough to know what a adult wants to hear or else just don't want to say something bad about it.

Imagine if you were eight again and some grownup you didn't know asked you to read something and tell them if you liked it (and you know they want you to like it). Chances are you would say you did whether you really did or not.

You might take the time to explain that you really want their honest opinion and you won't be mad or upset or hurt if they don't like something. It might be best if you give them the story to read rather than have a parent do it. There is too much of a chance that a parent will say "Here's the story Ms. Smith wants you to read and tell her whether you like it or not. She really wants you to like it." And the kid is thinking "Ooookay. I'll read it and pretend I like it so no one gets mad at me."
 

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I love the ABC thing.

I haven't gotten back from my kid beta, but she is an imaginative 10yo who often plays at fantasy with her aunt, who is my contact. Her aunt told her that I was robot who has no feelings to hurt, and I told her that I was counting on her for the sake of all the other kids who might read the book in the future. Also, apparently her idea of tact is "This is awful, but I'm sure someone will like it." ;)
 

Laurasaurus

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Also, any ideas on getting good feedback from kids? I've heard the idea to ask kids to go through the ms marking A, B or C in the text for Awesome, Boring or Confusing.
Love that!
I almost feel like that's the most I would feel comfortable asking kid betas to do. (Unless I had kids of my own.) Otherwise I worry it would feel more like homework to them rather than something enjoyable.

But I have never yet asked kids to beta, so I know nothing about it!
 

erikafabulous

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I've only very loosely had a couple of seven-year-olds look at what I'm working on, and they both only read a few chapters. I asked them questions that their teacher might ask them though. I wanted to make sure it was all making sense, so I asked about them what they could tell me about the characters, what their favorite part was, about their favorite character, any parts they didn't like, stuff like that. It might not have been very complete, but it gave me a good idea of what was working and what wasn't.
Your junior critique group sounds like a dream come true though. How did you find them?
 

jlstov

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I wanted to do the same thing, unfortunately I haven't been able to find many kids reading groups. :-(

BUT, I have had a few kids to check it out. With children I think you can try two things: 1, get a child spokesperson to actually interview the kids. Somebody barely older than they are and videotape the responses.
2. Use the basic context clues. Kids express their joy in the energy they give the project, not by what they say. If they say "It was good." but then that's it. Then your book sucked. BUT if they say "Oh my goodness this is like, like the best book I've read this year! I just-I just want to tell everybody! When is the sequel coming out!" Or "My favorite scene was with xyz, and I can't wait to find out what happened with abc."

My nephew is a voracious reader and when he was 12 I gave him the first version of my book (at the time it was only 3 chapters and 30 pages). When I came back, he told me he hadn't read it. His demeanor was quiet and reserved. (I figured he didn't like it) I did some research on "getting the book going" and rewrote the first 3 chapters splitting them into 5 chapters and cutting out about 6 pages. I added another 3 chapters and brought that to him two months later. THIS time his expression was different. He talked about how much faster the story started and how much more he liked the way the characters worked. He gave me scenes and descriptions of things he thought were cool. By the time I brought him the third draft in full 360 page glory, he tore through it in a weekend. He and his sister actually fought over reading it.

So pay attention to the small things - basically "read between the lines." (pun intended)
 

Helsinki07

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I have learned a lot from having children read my stories, but I haven't gotten the same type of feedback that I'd get from an adult critique. First, many children in the middle grade age group are starstruck by anyone who has written a book, even if it's not published! A teacher-friend took my novel to her class of 11 year olds and read it. I got a stack of amazing notes, with one even asking for my autograph! To be honest, I needed the ego boost after some harsh critiques from the big people, so I was happy that my friend offered to take it to her class.

I learned a few things from their questions (things in the backstory that weren't clear enough, for example) and I also learned a lot from where my son put the book down and picked something else up. So not traditional feedback, but helpful all the same.
 

Myrealana

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I gave the first half of my MG Scifi novel to my son's friends and asked them to read it for me.

I didn't ask for specific feedback.

I just judged my progress on whether they asked for the second half, and how long it took them to get to that point. I figured if they didn't get through the first part of the book, or if they did and didn't care about the rest, it needed more work.

I think getting feedback from your target audience is key. Kids know what they like. They may not be able to tell you why they like certain things, but you can learn a lot from their general reactions.

Just don't treat it like homework.
 

Tromboli

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One of my CPs has a 9yo daughter who loves to read so when I wrote a MG (we both usually did YA) she voulenteered her daughter to read it. What was nice was that the girl doesn't know me, still hasn't met me or talked to me but her mom relayed her comments back to me. That was a good set up because mom got honest comments and just emailed them to me.

Months later I'd still get an email with something like "Tia asked to read Darcy again." " She asked me today if there was a sequel"

If nothing else it was a confidence booster :)

I do wonder how a kids reading group would do with it. Would they feed on each other and talk more that way?

As to your other question. I did 2 rounds of revision, and had 2 betas read through it and then sent to her. I think that works because you can get any big issues out of the way and really have a good idea if the book is overall enjoyable
 
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SuperKate

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Thanks for all the comments, folks. It's definitely helpful to know how difficult it can be to get meaningful feedback. I'm thinking now that I'll send it out to whichever of them seem willing and then will give their moms some leading questions for afterward. Maybe I'll also ask that they turn down the page wherever they stop, so I have a sense of where their interest may have waned. I may also promise them cupcakes or bookstore gift certificates or something, for helping me.

And erikafabulous, I really just got lucky with this group. It's a mother/daughter book club that's been going in my neighborhood for a few years. We're actually about to start another, which my second grader and I will be in. I can't wait!

Tromboli, I think you're right. Adult betas first, then the kids. What I want from the kids is a sense of overall enjoyment, and I need to have worked out any issues before then.

Thanks again, everyone!!
 

RaggedEdge

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One other thing to consider: Will they be reading printed copies or on screen? It's costly to print that many at once so I wouldn't blame you for going the screen route. But we do read differently from screens, and children that age may not have access to screens for as long as they would books. Their experience with the screen might affect their reading. Just something to think about. It sounds like a great opportunity for all involved, though. Good luck with it.
 

SuperKate

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One other thing to consider: Will they be reading printed copies or on screen? It's costly to print that many at once so I wouldn't blame you for going the screen route. But we do read differently from screens, and children that age may not have access to screens for as long as they would books. Their experience with the screen might affect their reading. Just something to think about. It sounds like a great opportunity for all involved, though. Good luck with it.

Yes, that's a good point, for all of my betas. I was just starting to think through whether I can figure out how to format the ms to send it someone's kindle. I know it's possible to do that, but I haven't a clue how. That might be a good option, though, at least for the adults. Though maybe they'd prefer to work with Word and track changes? I guess I'll just ask what people want. I can get copies made fairly cheaply through the copy center at my office, so if they want a hard copy, I think I can do that.
 

Debbie V

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I did something like ABC with my niece way back. She was supposed to make a smiley at parts she liked, a frown at parts she didn't, a question mark where she was confused, and do something else for parts that made her laugh, cry, or be angry. Something like that anyway. The thing is, about three chapters in, she forgot to do it. She kept reading though.
 
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jlstov

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I did something like ABC with my niece way back. She was supposed to make a smiley at parts she like, a frown at parts she didn't, a question mark where she was confused, and do something else for parts that made her laugh, cry, or be angry. Something like that anyway. The thing is, about three chapters in, she forgot to do it. She kept reading though.

LOL - good idea though. I may try it if I ever get the opportunity.
 

Tromboli

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Yes, that's a good point, for all of my betas. I was just starting to think through whether I can figure out how to format the ms to send it someone's kindle. I know it's possible to do that, but I haven't a clue how. That might be a good option, though, at least for the adults. Though maybe they'd prefer to work with Word and track changes? I guess I'll just ask what people want. I can get copies made fairly cheaply through the copy center at my office, so if they want a hard copy, I think I can do that.

I do the kindle thing all the time. A little complicated to figure out how to set it up but after that its crazy easy. You need to authorize your email address on amazon then all you do is use that email to send a document to your kindle email and it automatically pops up on your kindle. A word doc is fine.

If you want to you can PM me and I'll walk you through it.
 

GigiF

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I used my two children as beta readers for my MG action adventure.

Son - 10 yrs old
Daughter 8 yrs old.

First read:
Made it to about page 15 before they stopped reading. They were both very cagey and I didn't think they liked it at all. It turned out that they really struggled to understand a lot of words I used and a lot of my phrasing and sentence structure but they really didn't want to give me negative feedback. I explained how it works and that telling me what they didn't like was the main idea - "The things you like aren't important to me right now, I need to know what you don't like".

Second reading:
They started writing down a list of all the words they didn't understand. (They got to about page 15 again).

Third reading
(I'd re-written the first 15 pages picking out any adult words).
They understood pretty much everything this time.

As you can expect, my son understood more than my daughter.

It was invaluable to me and my final edit is me picking out those words and re-writing just so it's a lot clearer. It reads less rhythmically than I wanted it to but I'll happily sacrifice that for kids actually understanding the story!!
:)

Good luck!
 
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jlstov

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Sounds great GigiF - can I borrow them? LOL
 

GigiF

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Sounds great GigiF - can I borrow them? LOL

I'm happy to ask them if they'll beta your MS. Not promising they'll read more than 15 pages though!! LOL.
 

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I haven't received notes from my kid beta, but when her aunt came back from a trip, she gave her a couple of comments. One was a piece of description that didn't work, and she wanted to make sure that I didn't put that in there because *everyone* would call me dumb :D The other was that she loves the jokes and that she gets jokes that her mother wasn't getting. The number one thing that I was worried about (thanks to an editor's comments) was that the jokes weren't kid-friendly, so hooray!

And then an interesting thing was that I had switched whose POV we started with, starting out in the fantasy world instead of the real world as a sort of promise of what most of the book would provide, but she really prefers the human character, so now I'm questioning that decision.