The Muddle in the Middle: Finding Books that Meet Middle Grade Readers Where They Are | Sponsored Post

By Don Everts, author of Oscar and the Mystery of the Glowing Orbs

Hey, Dad! Can you help me find a book to read?

I’ll never forget the day that text came in from my youngest son. I was surprised because Victor, a young teenager, had never caught the bug for reading (except for Harry Potter, of course) and always rebuffed my offers to go to the library or bookstore. 

Victor wants to talk books? I was thrilled!

When I got home, Victor told me he’d gotten an assignment from school: choose a novel written within the last three years for an upcoming reading unit. He had to have the book by the following day, but he was slammed with a history assignment that night. So, he wondered: did I have any middle grade novels written in the last three years in my library at home? Preferably, a book that was “not too boring.” 

We went to my shelves and as I thumbed along the spines I got a thrill imagining Victor reading each of the titles: The Dark Is Rising, A Wrinkle In Time, The Giver, Hatchet, The House of the Scorpion, The Hobbit. But eventually it dawned on me: none of my books were new enough. My shelves were filled with classics, not new books. Not a problem! I would go to our town’s big box bookstore and choose a book while Victor did his history homework. 

Before leaving, we agreed I should find a title that was fun and deep and not-overly-mature. Fun, because Victor loved to encounter some adventure or whimsy or thrills as he read. Deep, because Victor preferred books that made him think and ask questions about life. And not-overly-mature, because Victor still cringed at content that was too gritty or sexual. Most of all, Victor made me promise as I left that I would bring back a book “that I’ll actually like, Dad.”

I was giddy as I finally arrived at the middle grade fiction section of my local bookstore… but soon became confused and puzzled. 

For starters, it seemed like at least three-quarters of the books featured soft pastels and script fonts—clearly marketing to a young female audience. The titles looked fascinating, but I didn’t think Victor would appreciate me bringing a novel so explicitly geared toward younger female readers home to him. 

Next, I found a subsection of books that were in the fun-but-not-deep category. There were several sports-based titles I was interested in, but I wasn’t convinced they would scratch Victor’s itch for a story that would make him think and ask deep questions.

So, I kept searching and found a fascinating array of titles that struck me as deep-but-not-fun. Many of these issue-specific titles majored in social commentary and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t satisfy Victor’s desire for adventure and whimsy.

Honestly, that left a fairly thin list of titles to choose from. 

Once I excluded the novels that seemed to have a bit too much young adult grit and sexuality for Victor, there were only a few books left that I thought would satisfy Victor’s specific tastes and literary passions. In the end, I wound up bringing back two World War Two novels. Victor was not impressed.

While Victor grudgingly chose one of those two titles and did fine on the reading unit, I was left puzzling over that hole I’d encountered in the middle grade bookshelves. A few weeks later I was chatting about this with a novelist friend of mine as we were eating at a backyard cookout. She nodded empathetically, agreeing with most of my observations. And then she gently offered: “Well, you’re a writer. Why don’t you do something about it?”

I thought about her comment as I finished my bratwurst. 

And I kept thinking about it when I got home that night. Eventually, I went on to try my own hand at creating a middle grade novel that was fun and deep and not-overly-mature… and would appeal to both male and female readers. The result is The Sensate Saga, a magical realism trilogy that Victor heartily approves of. The first title, Oscar and the Mystery of the Glowing Orbs, releases February 2026.

Writing a novel is great (and has been a lot of fun!), but there must be more that can be done to address the hole in our bookshelves for readers like Victor. Children Victor’s age are primed to catch the reading bug and begin a trajectory that will lead to a lifetime of reading. If not, their eyeballs will inevitably be drawn to whatever flashing lights and clever click bait the nearest screens are displaying. So, what are we to do?

Rachel Grove has a great suggestion. Rachel is a middle-school librarian in northern Virginia who wrote a 2023 article in Publisher’s Weekly titled “Where Have All the 13- to 15-Year-Old Protagonists Gone?” She makes a compelling case that much of what’s being published is either “too babyish or too mature” for most upper middle school readers. She fears that we are going to continue to lose readers at this critical age if something is not done. Her suggestion? She urges publishers to bring forward more titles with protagonists in that 13-15 year-old sweet spot. As she puts it, “Students are asking for these books. Librarians want to buy these books. So, publish these books.” 

I heartily agree with Rachel’s case, but what about those of us who aren’t writers or publishers? 

Middle grade novelist Laurie Morrison models another hopeful step we can take in her post “Books About 13- and 14-year-olds: An Overview and a Working List.” While Laurie offers very practical advice for publishers and bookstore owners, she models something all of us can get in on: increasing the “visibility and discoverability” of great novels about young teens. She provides links to multiple lists she’s created of novels about young teens in multiple genres. 

This is something all of us can do: be thoughtful about the fun and deep and not-overly-mature novels for middle grade readers that we’ve encountered and share those lists. That way, when young teens like Victor are looking for a book, they can more easily find one. 

And parents who are looking for a book for their young teens will find more than a confusing void on the middle grade fiction shelves and a disappointing trip to the bookstore. Together with novelists and publishers and bookstore owners, I believe we can all help fill out our mental bookshelves with ready-at-hand recommendations of fun and deep and not-overly-mature books that will help young teens like Victor catch the bug and become lifelong readers.

So, what about you? What are your favorite fun and deep and not-overly-mature middle grade books? 

Find out more about Oscar and the Mystery of the Glowing Orbs.

Don Everts is the senior pastor at First and Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Missouri, and has been serving in ministry for over thirty years—on campus with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and in the local church with the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. He is also an award-winning author who has published over twenty books including Jesus with Dirty Feet, I Once Was Lost, and The Spiritually Vibrant Home. An avid reader, frequenter of rocking chairs, and amateur chicken farmer, Don and his wife, Wendy, have three adult children and live in a home solidly built in 1887.

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