Why Middle Grade Matters
People sometimes ask me why I write for the 7-12 age group. Why not YA? Why not picture books? Why middle grade?
Because middle grade is where it all happens. And honestly? Because I needed these books to exist.
Let me be real for a second. Growing up, I devoured books. The Baby-Sitters Club. Nancy Drew. I dabbled in Sweet Valley High. I lived inside those stories.
But I didn't always see myself in them. And when I did see characters who looked like me, the stories didn't always resonate. They weren't about kids just being kids — doing cool stuff, having adventures, navigating friendships, figuring out who they are. Instead they were heavy in ways that made me self-conscious rather than seen.
I just wanted to be a kid in a book. Doing cool, non-trauma stuff. Having the kind of adventures I saw in the stories I loved. That was it. And I couldn't always find that.
Years later, reading to my daughter, I fell in love with middle grade all over again. Fancy Nancy. Amelia Bedelia. Amelia's Notebooks — the ones that look like actual notebooks with drawings in them? We Loooved those. And I realized the magic of this age group had never left me. It had just been waiting.
That feeling — of wanting to see yourself in a story, of wanting adventures that feel joyful instead of heavy — stayed with me for decades. It's what finally moved me from walking around saying "I'm putting that in my book" to actually sitting down and doing it. All seven-plus years of it.
When I finally committed to writing, there was never a question about what I'd write. It would be middle grade. Always. These were the books that shaped my life. I even tried my hand at a middle grade mystery once. A Costume Calamity. It will absolutely never see the light of day, but it proved something important: this is where I belong.
And there's a piece of my own story woven into Dani Grace that I don't always talk about. When I was growing up, I was actually kind of good at dance. Good enough that I ended up in classes with kids three or four years older than me. And at that age? The age difference matters. A LOT. You're the little kid in the room full of teenagers. You can keep up technically, but socially? Emotionally? You're in a completely different world.
Dani Grace lives that too. She ends up in a class with older, more experienced dancers — and being good enough to be there doesn't mean she feels like she belongs there. That tension between ability and belonging is something I know personally, and it's at the heart of her story.
Middle grade is the age where kids are figuring out who they are — separate from their parents, separate from their friend groups, separate from who everyone else expects them to be. They're asking big questions: Am I good enough? Where do I fit? What's my thing? What happens when my best friend and I start growing in different directions? What happens when you're in a room where you technically belong but you feel like you don't? (hello!!)
These aren't small questions. They're some of the biggest questions we ever ask. And the answers kids start forming at this age? They carry those with them forever.
That's why I write for this age. Because the stories we give kids during this window really matters. They shape how kids see themselves and what they believe is possible. And every kid deserves to see themselves in a story where they're just being a kid — having adventures, making mistakes, finding their spotlight.
If even one kid reads Dani Grace's story and thinks "oh... that's me" — then I did my job.
That's why middle grade matters. That's why I spent seven years writing this book. And that's why I'm here.
~Genise