Middle School Nostalgia
While making my plans to work with Young Adult literature in the future (specifically YA fantasy), I always envision myself working with books like Children of Blood and Bone and Six of Crows and Strange the Dreamer, or even YA contemporaries like The Astonishing Color of After, Eliza and Her Monsters, Sadie, and The Hate U Give — so basically, teen literature. Older teen literature.
So when my supervisor told me he had a trilogy for me to read that was targeted for 8 to 13 year old girls, I was not entirely enthused. Don’t get me wrong, I love every day of my internship, but at 20 years old I couldn’t imagine myself enjoying anything meant for girls that young, and I even wondered how adult professionals manage to work with literature for such a young age group. How do they know what will catch the interest of someone so young — especially since what children do for fun changes so rapidly. And arguably more importantly, how do they keep from getting bored?
But I wasn’t about to turn down the series or argue about it. It’s just part of my job, and if I could pull off a good pitch letter even without enjoying the book, then that would just show improvement in my skills, right?
What I didn’t expect was that I would actually like the series. It’s absolutely perfect for its target audience, even though it centers around high school characters, so it allows readers of that age to feel like they’re reading something beyond their age range while keeping the innocent content.
For me, the series hit home in that it felt like a huge wave of nostalgia for something I probably would have loved in elementary/middle school. It reminded me heavily of Dork Diaries, which I used to love borrowing from my local library when I was probably 9 or 10. I think it’s a relatively popular series, but if you don’t know it, think Diary of a Wimpy Kid but specifically for girls.
Though this new trilogy didn’t have the cute illustrations to accompany the fun and quirky story, it also didn’t need it. The whole experience was incredibly visual and the dialogue was so fast-paced and punchy that I found myself actually laughing out loud at what I was reading. Not only that, but the problems that the protagonist faces throughout her series is exactly the kind of drama I can remember personally dealing with at the same age — whether it be boys, friends, first jobs, or even learning to drive.
I think that my ability to enjoy it at 20 years old, while also comparing it to what I would’ve thought of it at 9 years old, really solidifies my confidence that this trilogy is high quality. Considering the end goal is for the books to be turned into a movie or TV series, it always helps when adults can also enjoy watching so they’ll be more likely to let their kids watch as well. Though, even looking past marketing, the real point is that it can be a source of the same kind of family fun I experienced while reading Junie B. Jones or Ramona Quimby with my parents, but for other families.
And, of course, having the ability to put myself in the shoes of 9-year-old me and look at these books through her lens kind of helps me put into perspective how professionals do this their entire career.
