Aphelion

... For kids 6 - 8? I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was around 10 or 11, and was reading regular paperbacks a few years before that, so I wouldn't know. You might try looking at Barnes&Noble or Amazon for kids' books with age recommendations and look at the page counts. Then figure that they might have about half the words per page of an adult book (or less) ... Another point to consider: for that age range, how many of the pages will be full-page illustrations?

Robert M.

I have a question for the experts at Aphelion.

I recently wrote a sci-fi story for kids ages 6-8+ -- mostly for my son who is 7. When I wrote it, I didn't care much about the length. I wrote a story and when it felt complete I ended it. It runs about 9,500 words.

Does anyone know the aveage length for books aimed at kids this age? I have a feeling it's more like 15-20k words.

-- david j.

I wasn't completely sure, but I found this:
http://www.write4kids.com/colum44.html

It gives the definition by manuscript pages, but you might be in the right neighborhood.

Good for you that you managed to keep the length down. The last time I started out to write a story for my kids when they were that age, it wound up 80,000 words. (That doesn't sell so well, trust me.)

Nate

Also from www.write4kids.com, in their 'Ask Questions Here!' section:
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From a post by 'Marcia' at www.write4kids.com

Roughly, the age groups are: youngest, 3-7; mg (middle grade), 8-12; and teen or YA (young adult), 12+. These aren't absolutes, and there are subcategories. You may see picture books labeled for 4-8. Young readers run about 6-9, and these are usually written with vocab and sentence structure so the brand-new reader can tackle them. Chapter books, which are bridge books between early readers and novels, might be labeled 8-10. You may see mg's identified for 9-12, and some YA or early teen books for 10+ or 10-14.

From a post by 'Goldschmidt' at www.write4kids.com (in same topic/thread as above)

Yup, age groups do vary, and Marcia's description of the younger reader, middle-grade, young adult categories is right on. Also consider length -- how long is your work? Publishers often have fairly strict rules for word count, especially for younger readers. Guidelines abound all over the Web -- here's a snippet and some links:

> Easy reading picture book: 32 pages
> Easy reader 48-64 pages
> Early chapter book 48-64 pages (depending on the publisher)

http://www.underdown.org/early_rd.htm
http://www.cbcbooks.org/readinglists/choosing.html

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Your description of target age range of 6 - 8+ kinda straddles the 'standard' definitions (but there is a wide variance in reading skills by age, plus the parent-reading-to-child factor, so ...). 9,500 words divided by (say) 150 words per page would be about 63 pages (less if the words-per-page is higher than 150, more if words-per-page is less than 150), so you may be at the high end of the 'easy reader' / 'early chapter book' lengths noted by 'Goldschmidt'.

That is a good question! I can only refer to me at that age, and I was just reading comic books!!