There are, Consuela. You're not going to publish a first-person novel about a sixteen-year-old girl who gets pregnant as a middle grade book, for instance.

A lot of it is marketing, and certainly a lot of books cross over to many audiences, but most middle grade books are a) shorter, b) uses language geared maybe three or so years older than the audience, and c) features children as protagonists (usually).

Yeah, middle-grade is generally aimed at 8-12 year olds, and the protagonists are children, middle school at the oldest. There's usually no or only the mildest of romantic content.

YA is aimed at middle-schoolers to teens. If your 8-year old, however good a reader, is too immature for the themes, it's not middle-grade.

I did not know that. At my library growing up there were only three sections- children's (which was picture books), young adult (which is pretty much what is now being described as intermediate- it ranged from The Bobbsey twins to The Outsiders and Judy Bloom) and adult

I'd always thought it was a children's book series, huh.

The first book deals with AIDS and goes to a leather bar South of Market.

I thought it was about bats.

Short version: Encyclopedia Brown and An Unfortunate Series of Events were not written for a YA audience. Which doesn't mean they didn't or won't read them, but I would love it if any journalist bothered to differentiate between middle grade and YA, or post-apocalyptic an dystopian for that matter.

Amy is me! Also, YA is VERY different than middle school fiction. Encylopedia Brown is intermediate. When I sat on CYRM, I had a great librarian friend explain it this way. YA is like the R-rated work of the children writing set. Intermediate fiction is chapter books up to grade 5 and then middle school or junior fiction is everything else.

YA is anything that you might get a phone call from a parent about. To Kill a Mockingbird would be YA if it weren't canon.

I thought it was about bats.

There are no bats in Weetzie Bat.

I can't believe you haven't read it! Francesca Lia Block has been in my kitchen!

YA is like the R-rated work of the children writing set. Intermediate fiction is chapter books up to grade 5 and then middle school or junior fiction is everything else.

And then the youngest readers have easy-reader beginning books, then easy chapter books ... The whole hierarchy is complicated.

To Kill a Mockingbird would be YA if it weren't canon.

Exactly. And other books that start with a teenage protagonist (Anywhere But Here, She's Come Undone) are adult books because they take the character into adulthood.

Some of it is marketing spin, and essentially where the publisher thinks they'll make the most money, but otherwise content is taken pretty seriously when it comes to children's books. That's also partly about sales, though, because you want those library dollars (public and school), and while you want something exciting enough to create buzz, you don't necessarily want a book that's going to be challenged left and right.

I understand the Montmaray books are YA, which I guess makes sense, but the history and politics in them reads to me as rather older, especially as the series progresses. But Sophie starts writing the journals when she's 16, so it's YA. I guess.

Politics and even violence aren't usually considered objectionable for teens, though. Sex is usually the problem, or drug use. And those books were published very clearly out of love, and because they deserve to be -- I'm sure Knopf never once thought they'd be the next Twilight. But the flip side is if your authors are winning awards or prizes or getting reviewed seriously in major outlets. Just as important.