Reading at ages 9 to 12
A longer story with subplots, and paths you can choose.
What a book at this level is
These are not descriptions of what we aim for. They are the numbers a draft is measured against before anybody sees it: a book outside them is rewritten, and one that cannot be brought inside them is not sent.
- Length
- 8000 to 15000 words, aiming at 10000
- Pages
- 24 to 50, with 200 to 400 words on each
- Longest sentence
- 24 words
- Reading grade
- Flesch-Kincaid 4 to 7
- Lexile
- 700L to 1050L
- Pictures
- 3 to 5
- Chapters
- 8 to 14, ending where you want to keep going
- How much is people talking
- Between 20 and 55 percent
- Built from sounds they know
- No, because nobody at this age is sounding a book out alone
- Danger in the story
- Moderate. Real stakes, and a resolution the reader can see coming.
What the story is like
How it is put together
Three acts with a reversal at the midpoint, a subplot that pays off before the ending, and a resolution that costs the character something.
What is worth worrying about
Who they are, who they are loyal to, and being afraid of failing at something that matters.
What is funny at this age
Things going wrong in front of you. Wordplay, which arrives when a child can hold two meanings of a word at once. A joke that comes back bigger each time. Never sarcasm: a child who does not yet hear it reads it as the thing it literally says, which in a story is usually unkind.
The shapes a story takes
chapters, branching
Verse is not used at this age.
The levels either side
Children move between these at very different speeds and the speed is not the interesting part. A reader here is moved when what they actually read says they are ready, not on their birthday.