Title : Hexult

Author : Perry Bond

Genre : Adventure, Children's Fiction, Novel, Teenage Fiction, General Fiction

Review Extract: I enjoyed this, Perry - pacey stuff; felt very filmic to me. I liked the immediacy of the story-telling and your characters were warm (and your world cold and beautiful). The technology of the twins hints at a much wider world and you described them in a nicely ethereal way; in my head I was seeing the gelflings from The Dark Crystal. I wonder if you needed to elaborate a little more on the world of your tale, as the action does seem cut off from time and place (though I hesitate to suggest this because part of me liked the ice-bound isolationism of your setting - it lends your writing a mythical quality) ...

Synopsis
Hexult is a chain of islands in a vast sea of ice, divided by a great chasm. Shipwrecked twins, Jacob and Elya’s superior knowledge of science leads the superstitious islanders to believe they are magicians, upsetting the resident wizard.
Enter any story title into the search function on the top right hand corner of the site to read the opening chapters.

I have a problem getting my head around the genres for people who are not officially 'old'

I've listed my book under childrens fiction and teenage fiction. There is also Young adult and I assume for Americans only -middle Grade.

Now I'd like to put some ages to these title's, could anyone please confirrm I'm right, disagree, add more or just shoot me down.

Children 2 -12
(This seems daft, does this genre really run from four page cardboard books, to 30,000 word chapter books)

Teenage fiction 13-19
(This to my mind covers the puberty watershed and represends the fastest and biggest mental changes in our lives and so covers an huge range.

Young-adult
(I assume this is not so much age specific and literature that has contemporary themes that are associated with young people)

Further, there is the term cross-over. Does this mean any of the above that might cross over to adult literature, or can it mean a book that can cross over from any one genre to another?

Middle-Grade
I've just looked this up and found this quote:

Young adult from 12! is that right?


Could anyone genre stamp the following for me?

*Swallows and Amazons
*His dark materials
*Flood child


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His Dark Materials - young adult (i.e. 13/14+) - though I think a lot of kids younger than that read it.

Flood Child - middle grade (9-12)

Swallows and amazons - middle grade. E-asy Peasy?

'Children' covers such a wide age range that it is often wise to be more specific. If you look at the website of one of the publishers who specialise in children's books, such as The Chicken House, you may get a better idea.

I have also heard publishers say that children like to read about characters who are 1-2 years older than they are. This means that if your main character is 13, you need to ensure that your vocabulary, sentence length, ideas etc are appropriate for children of 11+.

As a rough guide I would divide 'children' into picture books, pre-school (4-5), early readers (6-8), competent readers (8+).

Teenagers also differ widely from the pubescent 13 year old to the mature 19 year old and books for the younger ones are unlikely to appeal to more mature readers. As a school librarian I thought more in terms of 'young teens' 12-15 and young adult 16+. It is not so much the subject matter that you have to be careful with in books for young teens as the way in which it is presented.

I repeat that publishers' guidelines will give you a good idea of what is required. It is also worth looking at the shortlists for major prizes such as the Carnegie, as they often give a recommended age.

Hope this is helpful

As it's at the top!

I've done some research into my book and it seems to fit in the 11 to 14 year old age group.

In America would this be upper-middle grade?
and in England 'Upper years', or just 'older children', or 'advanced readers'
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