Master's Thesis: A New Literary Theory for Kids' Books

I only use the MG and YA categories when I'm in writer mode. As a teacher, those categories are meaningless. In fact, if I told most of my teacher friends that I write "MG" books, they would have no idea what I'm talking about.

So to answer question #2--I rely on industry standards for my categories. Agent and publisher websites and blogs. They're the gatekeepers, so give them what they want.

For teachers, there are always three layers to consider: Ease or difficulty of reading, Age-appropriateness of content, and Interest level of content. So we would sort the MG category into a lot of smaller categories. Teachers are much more likely to talk about books in terms of grade level, and for that we rely more and more on RenLearn/Accelerated Reader as a fairly objective standard.

As for question #3... I try really, really hard not to "analyze" literature. So I don't have a good answer for you.

Ms. Judy did such a good job answering 1 and 2 I am going to skip them. For number 3 I'd have to say the child. I find that how the child relates to the book and what they take away from reading it are far more important than any particular literary aspects.

I would respond very differently as an author, academic, or teacher. Which perspective are you thinking of?

The categories are determined by marketing departments for the most part. Pb ages 4-8 is standard . But there are variants - Young PB can be 0-6 or 2-6. Non- fiction ranges older.
MG ages 8-12 is standard. YA = 12 and up. But publishers vary to. And there are other categories - Early Readers, Chapter books.

I can't come up with a single factor. They intertwine. The child/audience for the work. The culture the book is produced in. Themes of the work. Any of these can be a focus of study for children's fiction.

I've looked at older and newer versions of some picture books to see how illustrations have changed. No one smokes in the newer versions. That may be an example of cultural impact. The text in these has not been altered, only the images.

You may quote me, but correct any typos first.