Girls' bodies/ clothes in middle-grade fiction

I think you can get descriptive. But then I grew up in the days of Judy Bloom where bras, periods, masturbation, drinking, sex, eczema, and divorce were discussed. And you don't have to avoid sexual context either if you are worried about the age of the reader, at 13 kids know about sex, dressing sexy and are discovering their sexuality. Don't shy away from it if it makes sense for your story Have no fear, the youth can handle it! Oh and I see this is your first post so welcome to AW!

Emissarius said:

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering how descriptive you can get with girls' bodies and clothes in middle-grade fiction? All MG novels I've come across (including the ones bordering on YA with their 13-year old protagonists) tend to avoid mentioning stuff like short skirts or crop tops even if there's no sexual context involved. Is it a rule of thumb not to describe short/ revealing clothes in MG no matter what?

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I think I'm missing something. Why do you assume the girls are wearing short skirts and crop tops and not mentioning it instead of ... not wearing those things?

+1 to Jan74.

You might expand your reading circles a bit; some MG can push into territory beyond ankle-skirts and sweaters. It's not sexually provocative in MG, but to say that one can't generally describe bodies or have short clothes (or even no clothes - Bruce Coville had a brief nudity sequence in his CH/MG The Monster's Ring) in that category, especially pushing toward the upper end, doesn't sound right at all. What do they wear in beach scenes, old Victorian swimwear?

What about descriptions of male characters wearing short shorts and going topless? Why only ask this about female characters?

Answering as a parent: I'm a lot more concerned with misogyny and gender stereotyping than with descriptions of naked bodies. You can write a story where everyone's completely naked for the whole story if the context is realistic, but if female characters are basically just there as eye candy/arm candy for male characters, then there's a big problem.

Not 100% sure what age range MG is because in the UK it's classified differently (not sure about publishers - I'm going by how libraries and bookshops organise their shelves), but I'd always taken that MG was equivalent to upper primary here (age 8-11). Before puberty, children aren't interested in sex... it's kind of eww, icky. So why would they want to read such descriptions of anyone else's body in the first place? They don't pay attention to those things. You mentioned 13yr old protags, over here that would get classified as teenage fiction. But all the stuff about gender stereotyping still applies.

Emissarius said:

True, but in MG, you expect stories featuring those 12 or 13-year-old characters to be read by 8-11 kids. The problem with my story is that it's sitting right there between MG and YA, but it's a lot more MG cause it's got magical creatures and goofy humor. At the same time, I can't do away with describing short skirts and crop tops cause my 12-year-old MC kinda gets whisked off from a middle-eastern society with veils and stuff to a completely secular one. It would actually sound weird if she doesn't bat an eyelash at all the exposed hair and skin, and I totally don't mean it in an objectifying or sexual sense.


Thank you !


Cause I can't see how every single girl in every single MG book I've read wouldn't wear these clothes all-year long even in the dead of summer. It seems more like the authors are deliberately avoiding such descriptions. I even remember a scene (forgotten from which book, definitely an upper MG though) where the MC's older sister has a conversation with her from over at a swimming pool and the author never so much as tells us the color of the sister's swimsuit. Do you suppose she's actually swimming with T-shirt and jeans?

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I suppose she was probably in a swimsuit if she was swimming. I also presume what colour or style or anything else about it, or even that it was what she was wearing wasn't important to the narrative. Do you describe every character's clothing every time they appear?

Emissarius said:

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering how descriptive you can get with girls' bodies and clothes in middle-grade fiction? All MG novels I've come across (including the ones bordering on YA with their 13-year old protagonists) tend to avoid mentioning stuff like short skirts or crop tops even if there's no sexual context involved. Is it a rule of thumb not to describe short/ revealing clothes in MG no matter what?

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OP, I think it's just that in general there would need to be a reason to describe the clothes, other than simply the fact that they're short or skimpy. Your reason to describe is because short/skimpy is not what your MC is used to seeing. I can't imagine that being a problem - but if it were mine, I'd probably make a note that not everyone is wearing short/skimpy clothes, because frankly not everyone does.

ETA: That's the clothes. I'd steer clear of too much discussion of children's bodies in MG.

I think at the heart of kids clothing especially at age 12 is body image. This is an age where girls (not all, but in general) start looking for changes etc. Since she is coming from a culture that usually covers their body I would imagine it would be really jaw dropping to see the assortment of clothing. And I agree not all girls wear crop tops and show skin. I know the girls at my sons school(age 12) don't. It's usually skinny jeans, sparkly shirts that cover the tummy etc.

Don't worry about the age of kids that might read your book....what matters is the age of the kids IN your book. When I was 10 I read everything my sister read, sweet valley high, all the Judy Bloom books, the outsiders, V.C Andrews.....even at 10 if they pick up your book it's a glimpse of what the future may hold for them. Your problem isn't the readership....it might be the parents....but you can't concern yourself with that. Stay true to your story.

Body image is something girls are very aware of, don't shy away from this topic if it makes sense for the story. Girls as young as 12 have eating disorders and focus alot of attention to looks and how they feel in the world. It's an important topic.

Jan74 said:

Girls as young as 12 have eating disorders and focus alot of attention to looks and how they feel in the world. It's an important topic.

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Actually, children from the ages of seven and eight are presenting with eating disorders nowadays, which is why I think shifting the focus to other things than bodies might not be a bad idea. It's also why I think blowing off parent and teacher concerns is not very helpful. People are rightly cautious about the sexualisation of kids. Not focusing on their bodies, or too much on the skimpiness of their clothes - focusing perhaps on other differences, the minuses as well as the perceived positives (because a child from a different culture doesn't automatically embrace the new one uncritically) - would give a more complete character, I think. It would also be doing less to feed the problem of body-image issues in very young people.

neandermagnon said:

What about descriptions of male characters wearing short shorts and going topless? Why only ask this about female characters?

Answering as a parent: I'm a lot more concerned with misogyny and gender stereotyping than with descriptions of naked bodies. You can write a story where everyone's completely naked for the whole story if the context is realistic, but if female characters are basically just there as eye candy/arm candy for male characters, then there's a big problem.

Not 100% sure what age range MG is because in the UK it's classified differently (not sure about publishers - I'm going by how libraries and bookshops organise their shelves), but I'd always taken that MG was equivalent to upper primary here (age 8-11). Before puberty, children aren't interested in sex... it's kind of eww, icky. So why would they want to read such descriptions of anyone else's body in the first place? They don't pay attention to those things. You mentioned 13yr old protags, over here that would get classified as teenage fiction. But all the stuff about gender stereotyping still applies.

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Middle school teens (age 13 to 14) tend to fall though the cracks in US juvenile fiction (I've heard of "tween" categories, but I don't know how much traction it's gotten). I think MG encompasses grades 2-6 or thereabouts, so age 8-12. There may be some wiggle room, though, as kids tend to read "up," so older MG readers may be interested in stories about 13-year olds.

YA tends to focus on the high school years, and I've been told that protags under 15 are hard to place.

mccardey said:

Actually, children from the ages of seven and eight are presenting with eating disorders nowadays, which is why I think shifting the focus to other things than bodies might not be a bad idea. It's also why I think blowing off parent and teacher concerns is not very helpful. People are rightly cautious about the sexualisation of kids. Not focusing on their bodies, or too much on the skimpiness of their clothes - focusing perhaps on other differences, the minuses as well as the perceived positives (because a child from a different culture doesn't automatically embrace the new one uncritically) - would give a more complete character, I think. It would also be doing less to feed the problem of body-image issues in very young people.

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This is true. Puberty is happening earlier and earlier too. On top of all this, we live in a society that uses sex to sell everything and where kids who are itching to be thought of as young adults are targeted by advertisers.

I think MG fiction should probably reflect this, but I don't think it should be done in a way that reinforces the impression that pre-teen girls (or boys) should be obsessed with, or defined by, their bodies.

I suspect one reason some MG writers are a bit vague about the clothes the kids are wearing, beyond a "cute top" or something is that fashions change quickly, and a very specific description of a skirt (short or otherwise) that is "in" this year will likely feel dated, even ludicrous, to kids a few years down the line. Unless the book is period specific and one of its points is to evoke a certain era.

Roxxsmom said:

I think MG fiction should probably reflect this, but I don't think it should be done in a way that reinforces the impression that pre-teen girls (or boys) should be obsessed with, or defined by, their bodies.

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Yes - or that all the other pre-teens or young teens are obsessed with or defining other kids by their bodies.

Roxxsmom said:

I suspect one reason some MG writers are a bit vague about the clothes the kids are wearing, beyond a "cute top" or something is that fashions change quickly, and a very specific description of a skirt (short or otherwise) that is "in" this year will likely feel dated, even ludicrous, to kids a few years down the line.

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Oh, good point! Fashion probably dates more quickly even than music. (I blush to disclose - and this will surprise nobody - that I never quite mastered the fashion thing.)

neandermagnon said:

I'd always taken that MG was equivalent to upper primary here (age 8-11). Before puberty, children aren't interested in sex... it's kind of eww, icky

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That doesn't mesh with my recollection of being 8-11 at all.

Things that were eww, icky: Adults projecting onto me that what they (adults) found sexy were intrinsically sexy and that kids would appreciate the same things; adults projecting that their emotional attitudes towards sexual material would be the universal feelings about it and that we would feel the same way about it as they did; adults virtually leering at children's sexuality and making wink-wink nudge-nudge comments and signals, acting like they've been peeping-tomming inside my head and knowing my secrets.

I wasn't unsexual or "not interested" in sexual things as a young kid. Very shy about it, sure. It's hard to know whether what you feel is something that other people feel as well or if you're a perverted freak, but when people, in discussions about sexual orientation, have said "I've always known", well, yeah, me too... even if I wasn't at the stage of wanting to talk about it or do anything, there were feelings. Fascinations.

The only description of clothes I ever noticed when I was a kid was in one of the 'Little House' books, when Laura's button-down-the-back dress is buttoned with the buttons inside-out, so her braids wouldn't catch on them. It was an interesting idea. I don't think I cared about cut or colour.
If you've got to describe clothes, doesn't she also notice how many kids, of both sexes, wear clothes that 'back home' would have branded them as beggars: jeans with holes in the knees, and worn patches on the butt and thighs? Scruffy T-shirts, underwear showing, etc. She won't know that they are specially bought that way, or purposely damaged.

mccardey said:

Actually, children from the ages of seven and eight are presenting with eating disorders nowadays, which is why I think shifting the focus to other things than bodies might not be a bad idea. It's also why I think blowing off parent and teacher concerns is not very helpful. People are rightly cautious about the sexualisation of kids. Not focusing on their bodies, or too much on the skimpiness of their clothes - focusing perhaps on other differences, the minuses as well as the perceived positives (because a child from a different culture doesn't automatically embrace the new one uncritically) - would give a more complete character, I think. It would also be doing less to feed the problem of body-image issues in very young people.

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Just because teachers and parents are uncomfortable with it doesn't mean a writer should avoid the topic. Writers shouldn't shy away from these topics and focus on other things because somebody is uncomfortable with it. Girls shouldn't be ashamed of their changing bodies and going through puberty and I know as a young girl I appreciated writers who delved into these topics since it wasn't something my own mother discussed with me nor the school.

Girls don't have to be sexualized to have meaningful discussions about body image. The fact is that many girls spend many hours fretting over their bodies and their development. If it makes sense for the story to discuss these important issues then I say go for it. As for parents they need to get over it. I come from a time when groups were trying to censor Judy Bloom and it's absurd to censor writers when they are writing stories that girls or boys can relate to. No matter how uncomfortable the parents may be with it. I'm a parent myself, I have 3 kids and I can't imagine discouraging an author not to tackle these issues. Every generation goes through it.

Jan74 said:

Girls shouldn't be ashamed of their changing bodies and going through puberty and I know as a young girl I appreciated writers who delved into these topics since it wasn't something my own mother discussed with me nor the school.
<<snip>>
it's absurd to censor writers when they are writing stories that girls or boys can relate to. No matter how uncomfortable the parents may be with it. I'm a parent myself, I have 3 kids and I can't imagine discouraging an author not to tackle these issues. Every generation goes through it.

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I don't believe I said anything about censoring discussions of puberty. And I didn't say body differences shouldn't be discussed. I said that focusing on body issues to the exclusion of other issues that the MC would notice, was not something I'd do, because it amplifies the idea that body-shape should be more important than other differences.

AHunter3 said:

That doesn't mesh with my recollection of being 8-11 at all.

Things that were eww, icky: Adults projecting onto me that what they (adults) found sexy were intrinsically sexy and that kids would appreciate the same things; adults projecting that their emotional attitudes towards sexual material would be the universal feelings about it and that we would feel the same way about it as they did; adults virtually leering at children's sexuality and making wink-wink nudge-nudge comments and signals, acting like they've been peeping-tomming inside my head and knowing my secrets.

I wasn't unsexual or "not interested" in sexual things as a young kid. Very shy about it, sure. It's hard to know whether what you feel is something that other people feel as well or if you're a perverted freak, but when people, in discussions about sexual orientation, have said "I've always known", well, yeah, me too... even if I wasn't at the stage of wanting to talk about it or do anything, there were feelings. Fascinations.

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I probably should've been more exact/specific in what I meant when I said that. What I've bolded above in your post is what I was getting at, and what I believe shouldn't be in books in this age group (8-11). (Nor should the bit I didn't bold about adults leering... I didn't bold it because it wasn't included in what I meant in my original comment, but of course it shouldn't be done either.) I didn't mean to imply that no child ever had any kind of even the vaguest interest/curiosity about anything to do with sex before then.

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Regarding Jan's post... there are two separate issues here:

1. Books that deal with body image issues (and related things like eating disorders) sensitively - I definitely agree that these should be written and not banned. I'd be happy for my girls to read books like this and to discuss these issues with them. I would hope that open, honest discussion and realistic stories about these things would help young people to develop a more healthy attitude towards body image, etc.

2. Writers inadvertently contributing to the immense pressure that women and girls are already under to look a certain way or have a certain body type. This is what I'm concerned about what I believe Mccardey was getting at. The way writers describe the clothes and bodies of female characters - especially when it's done at the exclusion of other characteristics female characters may possess - can contribute to the message women and girls get over and over "it doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you look like, and you have to measure up to this completely unrealistic standard or you're worthless". It's also vitally important not to give boys the message that goes hand in hand with it "women are just there for decoration, they can't actually do very much" which contributes to mysogynistic attitudes that are prevalent in our society. Very simple things, like how you describe female characters (e.g. emphasising personality, skills, things like courage, etc over and above physical attributes like beauty, body shape*, etc) makes a massive difference. It also makes for more fleshed out, interesting, better developed characters (especially if the same non-physical attributes are shown, not just told).

*if it's relevant to the story and dealt with sensitively, e.g. the MC has body image issues and feels bad because she doesn't believe she's as pretty as the girls she's seeing, then that's not the same thing at all. And the OP's explanation that the MC's come from a culture where people normally cover up to one where they don't, that's a perfectly rational justification for the MC noticing all the skimpy clothing. I agree with the suggestion to convey that not everyone is dressed like that. Maybe the MC can notice that some women are wearing bikinis while others are wearing long shorts and a baggy t-shirt, and others are wearing long, summer dresses. Personally, I'd be among the ones wearing long shorts and a baggy t-shirt because I just prefer that kind of clothing. Also, my mum always covers up in the sun (big sunhats and long, light skirts) because she's ginger and burns very easily.

Emissarius said:

True, but in MG, you expect stories featuring those 12 or 13-year-old characters to be read by 8-11 kids. The problem with my story is that it's sitting right there between MG and YA, but it's a lot more MG cause it's got magical creatures and goofy humor. At the same time, I can't do away with describing short skirts and crop tops cause my 12-year-old MC kinda gets whisked off from a middle-eastern society with veils and stuff to a completely secular one. It would actually sound weird if she doesn't bat an eyelash at all the exposed hair and skin, and I totally don't mean it in an objectifying or sexual sense.

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I read a ton of MG, especially MG F, and I think you're right that there's a tendency to not describe what kids are wearing, unless it's something unusual (like the robes that Harry had to get at Hogwarts). But there are books that also mention clothes, like the Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett -- they always describe her outfits (her farm dresses, her boots, and her hat) and I loved reading about them.

I think in your case, since your MC is coming from a completely different culture, it would be natural for her to notice the changes in fashion, but she'd also notice this not just in other girls, but in women, men, boys, toddlers, etc. Also, hairstyles, makeup, shoes, the way people behave, and so on and so forth. So to me, the crop tops and short skirts would just be a blip within a sea of cultural change that she has to adjust to.

Cause I can't see how every single girl in every single MG book I've read wouldn't wear these clothes all-year long even in the dead of summer. It seems more like the authors are deliberately avoiding such descriptions. I even remember a scene (forgotten from which book, definitely an upper MG though) where the MC's older sister has a conversation with her from over at a swimming pool and the author never so much as tells us the color of the sister's swimsuit. Do you suppose she's actually swimming with T-shirt and jeans?

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The scene you described sounds like a non-issue to me. I would just assume the sister is wearing a swimsuit, unless I'm told otherwise. But also, if the narrative mentions "[SISTER NAME] adjusts her bright green swimsuit before waving at us", I also wouldn't bat an eyelid. It's only if the narrative actually halts to explain in gratuitous detail about her swimsuit that I would find it jarring.

mccardey said:

OP, I think it's just that in general there would need to be a reason to describe the clothes, other than simply the fact that they're short or skimpy. Your reason to describe is because short/skimpy is not what your MC is used to seeing. I can't imagine that being a problem - but if it were mine, I'd probably make a note that not everyone is wearing short/skimpy clothes, because frankly not everyone does.

ETA: That's the clothes. I'd steer clear of too much discussion of children's bodies in MG.

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Yeah, as with what Mccardey's pointed out, I would find it strange if the short/skimpy clothes are the only things that's being mentioned. What about jeans? Or baggy shirts? Would that not be unusual too?

Heh, as a personal anecdote...I grew up in tropical countries. My family would take vacations to the US or Europe in December, and we'd marvel at how there are people dressed in short sleeves in the middle of winter. I mean, my gawd, my family and I would be shivering in our ridiculously bulky jackets, and here are people in T-shirts, eating ice cream. There are gonna be different things that stick out to your MC, depending on her personality.

Roxxsmom said:

Middle school teens (age 13 to 14) tend to fall though the cracks in US juvenile fiction (I've heard of "tween" categories, but I don't know how much traction it's gotten). I think MG encompasses grades 2-6 or thereabouts, so age 8-12. There may be some wiggle room, though, as kids tend to read "up," so older MG readers may be interested in stories about 13-year olds.

YA tends to focus on the high school years, and I've been told that protags under 15 are hard to place.

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It's really interesting how much influence the school system has on age categorisation of fiction. I've always been a bit confused about what "middle school" actually is in the USA. My local library and most of the bookshops round here just lump all teenage fiction in together, and would include any book where the kids are secondary school age (secondary school starts in year 7, when kids are 11, going on 12 - my 11 yr old daughter's currently in year 7) even though they're not technically teenagers yet. Books for younger children generally get broken down into 8-11, 5-7 and under 5's, which corresponds with the way primary schools group the kids, i.e. junior/key stage 2 is 8-11 (year 3-6), infants/key stage 1 is age 4-7 (reception - year 2) and before that it's nursery.

Year 7 is the difficult category over here, because a lot of year 7 kids are still more interested in upper primary/junior type books but others will read up into teenage and young adult. My 11 yr old reads widely from various age categories including upper primary and teenage. She read the Hunger Games while she was in year 6 (or maybe year 5? Can't remember now.) She's definitely one for "reading up" but there is so much individual variation with kids, in terms of interest and their reading skills. There are also books like David Walliam's The Boy in the Dress where the main character is 12 and goes to secondary school, but the style of writing is more like upper primary and it's a favourite for primary school teachers to read to classes.

I sometimes think the whole age category marketing thing is too rigid - or writers are interpreting it too rigidly. I've never known my kids to put a book down for no reason other than that the main character's not the same age as them (or not the required 1-2 years older). I think it's more about themes and issues. A book about a 43 year old mortgage broker dealing with a recession probably won't be that interesting to most children. But books where the main character's an older person who does things that kids think are fun or that kids can identify with aren't that uncommon in children's literature. Esio Trot by Roald Dahl springs to mind.

neandermagnon said:

It's really interesting how much influence the school system has on age categorisation of fiction. I've always been a bit confused about what "middle school" actually is in the USA.

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Middle school is generally 7th and 8th grade, which is for most kids ages 12 and 13 and ages 13 and 14. However, traditionally, there was something called "junior high," where ninth graders were in the same schools as the 7th and 8th graders, so kids as old as 15 attended. Most highschools have grades 9-12 these days, so students aged 14-18. More recently, some middle schools also include sixth grade, which would be 11 and 12 year olds.

I don't know why they divide schools up like this in the US. There are some places, such as very small towns, where they probably don't, but in suburbia and cities, most public schools are organized this way here. There are developmental differences between kids in their late pre teens and very early teens and older teens in terms of development and so on. I suppose there is some concern that if they had 12 and 13-year-olds at the same schools as 16 and 17 year olds, there could be issues with older boys exploiting much younger girls or with the younger kids being pressured to grow up too quickly because they'd be emulating their older schoolmates? Of course, that's happening these days anyway.

Year 7 is the difficult category over here, because a lot of year 7 kids are still more interested in upper primary/junior type books but others will read up into teenage and young adult.

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This is very true here in the US also. Also, the early teen years is when some kids give up on reading for other interests. This might be why books for "tweens" is a tough marketing category. The ones who are dedicated readers are likely delving into YA already, while the ones who aren't are either reading down, or not reading for fun at all. And since it's a narrower age category, sales may not be sufficient to drive it as a distinct market here. I've heard that books with 13-14-year-old protagonists are a tough sell. YA novels sales about older teens are bolstered because they are popular with some adult readers too.

Thanks for the explanation I think I got confused because I was mentally trying to put together elementary school, middle school, junior high and high school and sort of running out of year groups lol. If middle school and junior high are basically the same thing (give or take differences between states/districts the exact year groups that they include) it makes a lot more sense. It corresponds most closely to key stage three over here, i.e. year 7-9/first three years of secondary school. In age I think year 7s are one year younger than 7th graders in the USA, i.e. age 11-12. Before the year groups were standardised across the whole country, a few secondary schools started in year 8 and year 7 was the last year of primary, but starting in year 7 (originally called first years, like in Harry Potter) was by far the most common.

The years in Harry Potter are the same as in UK secondary schools. Not sure how many people outside the UK realise that because I've seen online Harry Potter fan websites discussing the significance of having 7 year groups in Hogwarts. There is no significance. The year groups are the same as in any British secondary school, except they have the old year group names. Secondary school used to start again at "first year", with the last two years known as "lower sixth" and "upper sixth" and collectively as sixth form. Year 12 and 13 are still known as sixth form, in spite of the fact that it makes no sense call it "sixth form" after year 11. Not all secondary schools have a sixth form. Some finish at year 11. There are sixth form colleges in some places that just have year 12 and 13.

Roxxsmom said:

I suppose there is some concern that if they had 12 and 13-year-olds at the same schools as 16 and 17 year olds, there could be issues with older boys exploiting much younger girls or with the younger kids being pressured to grow up too quickly because they'd be emulating their older schoolmates? Of course, that's happening these days anyway.

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Interesting, because traditionally, secondary schools are year 7-13 / age 11-18. But also traditionally schools were single sex and mixed schools didn't really come about until the 70s or thereabouts. My daughter (the one in year 7) goes to a single sex school, albeit the school wasn't chosen for that. Both the schools that were the best suited for her academically happen to be girls' schools. They have parallel boys schools and run social events along with the boys school - these would involve specific year groups only, not the whole school. But even in mixed sex secondary schools, the year groups tend to socialise among themselves and teachers would be on the lookout for worrying things, e.g. year 11 child dating year 7 child and they would clamp down on anything like that. AFAIK it doesn't happen much because it's usually seen as being undesirable to socialise with younger year groups anyway.

Also, from my experience teaching, the older pupils in 11-18 secondary schools have a better influence on the younger pupils than the oldest kids in 11-16 secondary schools. Two reasons: one is that the older students are more mature generally, having grown out of the adolescent phase where their frontal lobes aren't quite functioning like an adult's yet and they're prone to bad decision making and impulsive behaviour. The second is that year 12 and 13 aren't compulsory, so it tends to be the most academic and ambitious kids who stay on in 6th form because they want to go to university. Kids who aren't so academic and/or hate school tend to leave for technical college or apprenticeships and want to get out of school ASAP. Also, 6th form students get special privileges like not having to wear uniform and getting their own common room, so younger students look up to them a lot, and see ambitious, hard-working students who want to go to uni. In 11-16 secondary schools, it tends to be the toughest/naughtiest/most notorious kid(s) in year 11 that students look up to, so they emulate all the wrong behaviours and attitudes.

neandermagnon said:

I sometimes think the whole age category marketing thing is too rigid - or writers are interpreting it too rigidly. I've never known my kids to put a book down for no reason other than that the main character's not the same age as them (or not the required 1-2 years older). I think it's more about themes and issues. A book about a 43 year old mortgage broker dealing with a recession probably won't be that interesting to most children. But books where the main character's an older person who does things that kids think are fun or that kids can identify with aren't that uncommon in children's literature. Esio Trot by Roald Dahl springs to mind.

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^^^100% agree. I was blessed to move to small tiny village where the school library was the public library which meant I had access to adult books at a young age. I was reading Stephen King by age 11. I was also blessed to have parents who never censored our reading choices. Which meant whatever they were reading or my older sister was reading was never off limits. So I was reading my sisters books after she was done. We had an alcove in our house that we called "the library" it was shelving filled with novels, all sorts of novels and nothing was off limits in there.

I think adults don't give kids enough credit and shelter them too much. They don't want young kids reading sensitive themes etc, but why not? What are they afraid of?

But I understand not wanting to glamorize or sexualize young girls and remembering the audience you are writing for. It's healthy to have a balance in the story. Maybe there is a girl who is highly sexualized because it makes sense for the story and other charactors who are not.

I'm thinking and trying to put myself in the shoes of a young girl coming from a culture where the women are hidden behind yards of fabric. The clothing eliminates the shape of the woman underneath and then coming to another country where you can see a persons figure....all types of figures. How jaw dropping that would be. Would it scare me? Would it excite me? Would I want to wear the tank top with spaghetti straps or the baggy shirt? How does this young girl fit in her new world?

I think it's a very interesting topic and I would imagine she may be very keen to take in all the details of the clothing around her.

I myself am a people watcher. I can sit and just watch crowds of people, what they wear, how they walk, how they talk, gestures etc. I think having many details regarding clothing and specifics may work for your story.

If it makes sense for the character to detail everything around her, then go for it