Divisions of Young People's Literature

There are 4 main divisions of literature for young people.  They are as follows.

Children’s Literature- The age range here is typically 0 to 8 years old.  Picture books, Easy readers, illustrated chapter books, early chapter books, and some smaller novels are included in this category.  Topics are those that young children will enjoy.

Middle grade- Age range for middle grade books is about 8 to 12 years old.  Here you start to get into some more complex topics, but still remain kids friendly.  It is important to understand that “Middle Grade” and “Middle School” are not the same.  Middle schoolers tend to be in the 11-14 age range, so this is some overlap with Young Adult fiction.  This can make it a bit difficult for the middle school librarian who will have to make sure not to get YA fiction that is too advanced for their middle schoolers.

Young Adult- Teens 13 to 18 years of age may enjoy books from this category.  The content of these books is more appropriate for high schoolers as it may contain things like cursing, drug use, and mild sexual content.

New Adult- This is a relatively recent category made for people 18 years to 30 years of age.  The characters are typically recent high school graduates or in their twenties. 

I found this information pretty helpful almost immediately.  I was trying to decide on a young adult fiction writer to follow on twitter for another assignment I’m working on.  I wanted to follow Rick Riordan, but I wasn’t sure if his books qualified as YA fiction.  With this assignment though, I was able to put some numbers to that category and settle my quandary. 

I also found the information about the new adult category pretty interesting.  I somewhat recently got into a discussion about this with my librarian at school.  We were discussing some different books and she brought up the new category and described it to me then.  I feel it is a prime example of how libraries change with the times instead of staying a stagnant, static institution as some would believe.