Summer Reading Research

School is out, and summer reading programs are gearing up in public libraries everywhere. Summer months are the perfect time for audience research.

An editor at SkyHorse publishing once told me she reads thousands of manuscripts about growing up in the seventies and eighties. She said they were fun to read, but they are not what she is looking for. What she wants are manuscripts that are relevant for kids growing up in this decade. Kids do not understand nostalgia. They are creatures of the here and now, and need stories about their world – not the one we writers wish they had.

If you are writing for kids, you need to read kids’ books. If you write kid characters, you need to understand how kids speak to each other, how they think and behave.

I can hear you asking now: How do I do this without being creepy?

As I mentioned earlier, it’s summer. Public libraries and brick-and-mortar bookstores have summer reading programs and plenty of supervised activities from June until school starts. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to:

1) Find age or grade-specific reading lists. Read everything on them. Pay attention to how the authors write for their reader. What is working and why does it work?

2) Introduce yourself to the kids’ librarian or manager at your local bookstore. Ask them what your target audience is reading. Find out what he or she thinks will be popular and why. Find out what the “regular” customers are reading. Are there any under-rated books flying under the radar that they recommend?

3) Listen. Aside from eavesdropping in the aisles, you can ask your librarian for permission to take a poll at any of their summer reading or writing classes. You can ask for permission to read sample chapters and get feedback from the kids. You can ask things like, ‘Does this sound like something one of your friends might say?’ or ‘how do you think this character would solve the problem?”

What did I miss? How do you research your middle grade readers?

Kell McKinney earned a B.A. in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and an M.S. in documentary studies from the University of North Texas. She’s a part-time copywriter, double-time mom and wife, and spends every free minute writing and/or hunting for her car keys. Connect with her on Twitter @Kell_McK or kellmckinney.com.