Kingfisher is a great example for the critique as well though, because most of the books have been indie/self, not major publishers, which means sadly lower availability, especially in libraries.
@@marzipan9 Absolutely, I've liked the several Hamster Princess books I've read and the first Dragonbreath, my favorite of her childrens works is Castle Hangnail though!
People complaining that kids just have short attention spans are ignoring the obvious; if you’re concerned that a kid can’t pay attention, giving them a book they can complete quickly is a better starting point than giving them something they can’t possible hope to finish. And, if you have an older kid who is still struggling to read, having short books for mature readers, not just middle grade books, is super important - I learned to read pretty late and as I grew older, the books which were reading level-suitable for me became boring because they were aimed at little kids. Getting my hands on a better range of short, non-intimidating, books with plots that were of interest to a teenager helped me gain my footing and eventually become a strong reader.
I agree with this, but I think they should keep in mind who it’s actually marketed towards. I like MG and YA sometimes but I’m not the audience for it, and I hate to think it’s being targeted towards me
Yes! Shorter books, please. I mean, I have loved long books. And there are some books I don't want to end. But...there are SO.many books where it just gets too wordy or scenes just drag on and on and just need to end. My sweet spot is probably 250-300. I'm also reading multiple books at a time, because the ADHD is real folks.
Jess, middle grade is very long now. The discourse started because someone who was either a librarian, educator, parent or both pointed out that we need less 400+ page middle grade books. The kids aren't reading them because they're intimidated and kids are instead reading more graphic novels and comics if they read at all. Points were made that they are targeting more adult readers with the higher page counts and advanced vocabulary.
Yeah, I remember seeing where it started in MG too. People were trying to rewrite history saying that MG books were long and I'm like..."Sweet Valley Twins" and books like that were not tomes.
@@t.a.summersI’m not sure I would have considered Sweet Valley Twins middlegrade, but the lines were pretty blurred even back then. I would consider middlegrade to be anything appropriate for an upper elementary child to middle school. YA would be appropriate for a high schooler. Sweet Valley Twins and Goosebumps and things of that length were books I was reading in lower elementary school, so I would consider them children’s.
@@LexTime89 SWT was definitely middle grade for some of the original line books because of the storyline ("Goodbye Middle School" being one title as an example). They were on a lower reading level for kids to understand, but the reading age rec for those books were ages 8-12. And as someone who grew up with those books and absolutely read them during middle school, I'd make an argument that they resonated with me then. There was also the Sweet Valley Twins Jr High series as well, which followed Jessica and Elizabeth in 8th grade.
@@t.a.summersabsolutely. And they had the Unicorn Club, etc, books for SV properties. Equivalent to BSC, I'd say. I was the target audience and remember zipping through between more complex books.
contemporary romances being the same length as fantasies now is concerning, what more can you write after 300 pages in a romance? they get together and they're happy we don't need to know that they got married and had kids
I write contemporary romance and I can’t figure out how people are writing them 300 pages and more. Maybe I don’t have enough subplots lol but mine are like 200 pages if that
I read a 700+ page slow burn romance. The burn was so slow I froze to death and will not be picking that series back up any time soon. Oh yeah... it's a series.
Lmao reminds me of The Spanish Love Deception. Heard that the REAL action starts around the 70% mark, and is being promoted as "slow burn" and I was like "For a slow burn, it really needs to be this thick??? Huhh??😀". Also, those Lucy Score books... they're romance books AND they're hella thickk. Oh my God what was the author even thinking writing romance books for THAT LONG??🫠😖😣
As a private tutor and teacher, I find myself giving my students some books from my childhood or older books as middle grade books were like 200-300 pages MAX when I was coming up. Honestly so many of these students are 2 grades below reading level. You give them a 400+ page book and they already feel defeated.
When I was in college the best writing teacher I had said when editing you should be cutting every third word. Advice to live by!!! I feel like editors are falling asleep at the job these days because every 400+ page book I’ve read in the last three years has been about a third longer than it needed to be.
I’m real tired of people saying they want to support DEI and not think that includes meeting kids where they are. This whole “attention span” conversation is giving elitism and ableism.
Ageism as well. Adults don't give kids grace. Kids have a harder time doing the same things they do, but adults want to force them to grow up faster than to let them just be a kid.
A sampling of books I read between 4th grade and 6th grade as an incredibly advanced reader who read well above grade level all through school. Hatchet: 208 pages Julie of the Wolves: 176 pages My Side of the Mountain: 177 pages The Report Card: 173 pages The Clique: 220 pages Royal Diaries: Around 238 pages Dear America: Around 204 pages 1st Diary of a Wimpy Kid book: 226 pages Middle grade books have not always been 300-500 pages long and kids are suffering because of it.
The length is only half the story when it comes to advanced reading. It also involves the ability to comprehend complex ideas and topics. I’m not familiar with the books you listed, but I read Gone with the Wind and Jane Eyre in the 4th grade.
Yes shorter books please!!! I just heard an snippet of a NPR story and they were talking about how elementary and middle school kids did not learn as much as before the Pepperoni and would need like 4 more months to catch up with the previous years. So imagine these kids who may not like reading anyway trying to give a new interesting book a chance but its 300+ pages! As an adult, I'd think twice about reading it too! Even now I hesitate to read any of the most recent series because they're just too long. I legitimately got upset when I realized that Ordinary Monsters wasn't a standalone after I read it. I saw how big it was and just figured that it HAD to be a standalone.
Wait wait wait THE PEPPERONI 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 that took me out 😂😂😂😂 Ok back to the important stuff, I can’t imagine what the kids are going through already struggling to catch up and having these chonky books to read. And omg I thought Ordinary Monsters was a stand-alone too!!!
No lie, when I'm interested in a book I go on Goodreads and look at the page count. If it's over 400 I question if I'm THAT interested. And if it's a romance over 400? Nah.
Honestly, ever since I started Japanese and Korean Literature (translated), nearly most of the books tend to be a lot shorter than I thought they are. But other genres? It's super duper long and even romance books now are longer than they should be. Hell, even dragging the plot for the "slow burn to happen" or "to make the suspense more happening!" or whatever nonsense authors think they're doing🫤 And I agree with you, shorter books for the win!
In my opinion, a book should only be over 450 pages if it has multiple main characters (at least 3) and at least two major plotlines. This is more common in epic fantasy, which is why they are longer. Series often elevates side characters into more prominent roles in the narrative, so that's probably why they get longer over time. Stormlight Archive I think is fine because the intent of the book is to be expansive and cover a lot of detail, hence the interludes. Not for everyone, but I'm glad these types of books exist, especially when they are that good. Those types of books are pretty rare, anyway, but the run of the mill fantasy could use a good 15-20% hacked off its length.
YES! If we want to create lifelong readers we must have something to hook them. A great story that doesn't drag is so important for kiddos. They have to be able to develop a love of reading before they can push through a great book that may have a small portion that stalls and bogs down. If educators and librarians that are working directly with this population are asking for this based on their experience, it would be best to listen to them. Keep writing and publishing the chonky books for the kids that are there BUT please start writing and publishing for the kids that will get there if we give them the chance. AND, I agree, we need this for adults too because even when we are already a voracious reader there are times when we just want a nice short book with a great story to get us through or to keep us going after a big epic read. Just let us have a variety PLEASE writers and publishers. Open those ears and hear the people.
Oh - and - some of these are not my words, my five-year-old said some of this while eating her cheerios this morning. 🤣🤣🤣 She is very smart and worldly. Oh - and - I don't have a five-year-old but I wanted to appear to have raised a freaking little genius because I think it makes me look good on the internet. Why y'all laughin'? She said it. Seriously, why do these people say stuff that everyone knows is BS? People, Please - just stop.
For anyone looking for shorter books a lot of Japanese literature is quite short and has an easy to digest writing style. (Convenience Store Woman for example). Kevin Wilson writes short books that I personally connect with a lot, and he has a fantastic short story collection. Cozy mysteries are always easy to read during times of high anxiety and tend to be capped at 300 pages! I like graphic novels too to stay motivated. I agree though it is hard to find a broader selection of literature that is short and easy to process during times of poor mental health.
1000% yes!! My kiddo is a little above his reading level at age 5, and we're starting to dip into chapter books, but I'm having to HUNT for things that don't intimidate him. He's totally capable of reading complex stuff, but when he sees the amount of words on a page he won't try. It's NATURAL. You have to ease kids into longer stuff, and sometimes they never get comfortable with it, and THATS OK. There needs to come a point where we stop confusing "ability" with "preference". Also, even making the wild belief that that 5 year old child actually uttered those words.... it is darn close to child abuse to be making your kids think about heavy topics at that age. Wait until they're more mature to start crushing their spirit about capitalism.
I agree there needs to be more shorter book options. As a parent, my child often brought home chucky books but never touched them, but when we'd select a shorter one at our local library, they'd actually read it.
I read Goosebumps as a kid. Those books ranged from 114 pages to 127 pages. From what I've seen as a high school English teacher is that people's attention span is getting shorter for many reasons, including struggling with mental illness. Why are people completely forgetting that in this discussion? Also YASS to everyone Bethany Jonathan Baptiste said.
Elliot Brooks actually mentioned that she was starting to really enjoy Novellas in Fantasy and the quality of writing can be shown through short books. I agree on this front because a lot of the books I grew up with and helped me read so much more and faster was actually Mercades Lackey, Robin McKinley and Anne McCaffery. Those books are absolutely delightful to read through with how much shorter they are. And they wrote both series and standalones, and Anne McCaffery even wrote books even *shorter* than 100 (i read a 94 page book of hers and the story was a standalone and I loved it so much) I just picked up A Wizard of Earthsea and I was wonderfully delighted when I saw how short it was for the *one* book. I know that the ombibus is.... a massive tome to say what it is, but the one, single book is far smaller than I expected and it's nice to have it far shorter as I want to take my time right now with it and at my own pace. Another smaller book series? The Enchanted Forest Chronicals. Four books, and all of them about maybe 230-300 pages. They're not long. But the story it tells is wonderful. The Theif Lord by Cornilla Funke? Yo, that book is what got me into the aurthor as I loved the story, and I went in deeper with Inkheart (I still think Inkheart should have been a standalone instead of a Trilogy. It was fine with how it ended.) There's reason why Japan does the Light Novels series, they're shorter and easiser to read in bite size way when people have time. I do absolutely enjoy longer tomes but right now I'm trying to break that up with shorter books so I can feel at least accomplished that I'm getting back into reading. (I'm loving Lies of Locke Lamora, but damn is that long....) And to call back at those people's bullshit... most of these books were written between the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s..... "Back in my day" not all books were fucking bricks and these aurthors were popular in their time. You don't know page counts people.
For romance, imho, it really started ballooning when authors were debuting in Trade Paperback, instead of Mass Market Paperback. Trade is more expensive, so romance authors whose manuscripts were 250-300 pages, i.e. the length of an MMP, had to be padded. AND IT SHOWED. I remember clearly reading 10 Romance Trade Paperback length books in a row, and liking two of them, finishing 2 more that were ‘meh’, and DNF’ing 6. I hesitate in a big way now to even start one. So if I’m feeling it, a seasoned reader of 48 years, I can’t imagine the struggle for middle grade readers 😢
I love good shorter stories. I think it actually takes more skill to tell a story in as few words as possible without making it feel rushed or crowded. My only issue with short books is the price. It doesn't reflect the length of the book. (Looking at you Wayward Children series, Singin Hills Cycle, Murderbot, ... 👀👀👀)
And there might just be the real answer why everyone is being encourage to write long - it’s to keep printing costs as profitable as possible. Myself I really REALLY miss the old mass market paperback formats. Portable and affordable. That size is nearly extinct, everything is huge trade paparback now. And when an author debuted, it was rare to have a first print be in hardcover - now it’s the norm. So I highly suspect the format of the books has a lot to do with the change over the years.
You are so right in this video. My students are in high school and they need shorter books, too! I also think the comment about books needing to justify their length was on point. Readers give their free time to the authors whose books they pick up, and books should either have a real need to be long or ditch the bloat.
As someone who struggled with dyslexia as a kid. Having shorter books which are more accessible for kids who were like me, it would be super nice. Percy Jackson was a good option when I was younger, but I struggle to think of any recent examples
The way I read, I usually choose a longer book followed by a shorted one. Both are important and a lot of times shorter books are really well written becuase they are down to the bare bones of what is necessary for the story. Not every middle grade/young adult book has to be Harry Potter length. My children all enjoy reading but they also love to pick up quick reads, especially my youngest (11) she feels pretty accomplished when she can sit down and read a book quickly.
i recently started a reread of the Wayward Children series because of this. i just have no mental capacity for longer drawn out plots with all the bullsh*t going on in the world rn. even with this series, the books are taking me a week or so to finish. 2 years ago id have read each book in a day. WE WANT SHORTER BOOKS! ty
I agree with you when it comes to adult books especially for established authors. I feel like editors just let them go on and on. I wonder if the editors feel like the authors know what their readers like you they do feel the need to tell them to cut stuff out.
Agreed. A lot of books being published today are longer because they're poorly edited--not because their stories warrant 400-plus pages. Publishing houses need to do better imo.
Lol my First response was “let me get my childhood books out.” I have an entire shelf + of them and they are all so small. 😅 why do you think we all remember reading so many books? Bc they were like 150 pages long and had like 72 of them in a series. 🤣 goosebumps, dear America, Nancy drew, boxcar kids, animorphs, dahl… I could keep going. My now 11yo and I have been reading through all of the Percy Jackson books over the last 2 years and the first series was on the longer side but were great balance for her age and comprehension. the next series, the books were twice as long (google says 150k words!!!) and it was a bit of a struggle even though we liked the story and characters more overall than the first series. Trials of Apollo are the shortest I think and it was a immediate and noticeable difference. I love reading and it’s really starting to feel like even the stories I enjoy are become a slog to get through. I can’t even go pick up some new middle grade for a quick, enjoyable read bc I look at them and they’re just as long as my adult sff 🥲
Yessss Boxcar Children, Animorphs, Nancy Drew!!!! None of these were long books. Idk what that person was reading. But they were short and compulsively readable. Easy to read multiple per week!
I still reread the Animorphs books on a regular basis. Those books were amazing, and as an adult they take me all of 20 minutes to read. Delicious, love it. Gonna go read about my war criminal traumatized children!
also i think the reason kids/middle grade books are chunkers now is because of the HP Effect. Books definitely got bigger after that series came out and I think publishers are hoping to attract people outside of the actual middle grade reading audience. Same reason you'll see many YA books these days with 18 yr old protagonists instead of 15 or 16 yr olds, they want the books to appeal to older readers at the same time.
YES and amen. I'm middle-aged and I can assure you that with a few exceptions, books were on average much thinner when I was in my 20s and 30's. I do wonder if the trend toward chonky MG books has something to do with the fact that (a) as that educator's posts pointed out, a bunch of people who read middle-grades are whole-a$$ adults (me and my sisters, lol) so if the thicker ones sell well, publishers are like "A-HA!" (though the sad fact is, they're the shortest books I read except for novellas) and/or also (b) the effect of Rick Riordan and she-who-must-not-be-named putting out bigger books as the readers get "older" but let's be honest: There were 6-year-olds reading the last Huge Property book by that second author, which was ridiculous, but it could have given publishers the idea that this was a "new normal" for the MG age range.
This is a good conversation because I've noticed one of the reasons could be that we're in a new generation. I remember reading a book by a new author two years ago, sent to me for an honest review and I remember reading it and thinking how different the style was, like the line and copy editing. Reading it felt much different than books I've read today and I looked up the author and he's like 70! And then I went back and looked at older books from when he would have been younger and they had that similar structure grammatically. There were rarely any run-on sentences, he didn't use any conjunctions. He would end a sentence and start another one, no connecting the two. And think about it, if you look at a lot of elderly people, born in the 50s 60s, even the 70s, the way they spoke, the way they wrote was much more precise, much more to the point. They didn't take long to say what they needed to say or over explain. A lot of (not all) of the books that came out in that time were shorter compared to now. And I feel as if that really is a representation of a changing generation. This generation writing now, uses too many words to say what they got to say. The way they use words is just more lengthy, even looking at videos where people are explaining things they take a longer time to get to a point than let's say if I was watching a documentary or an interview from the 70s where people had learned to be articulate and precise with their words and that precision lends to short sentences, which leads to shorter paragraphs, etc. You understand what I mean. Yes, IT IS publishing and Amazon with their paying authors per pages read so more pages read means more money. It's all of that contributing to books being too long for no reason, but we also need to consider that this generation just doesn't know how to say more with less words. If I was a part of the older generation I'm sure this paragraph would be much shorter and I would still make my point.
I'm the same with childhood books, I read the Sweet Valley books and they probably ran 160-200 ish pages. I would say Priory of the Orange Tree earned its length but most books don't.
For me 350 is max for romance some of them are out here 500-700 pages and im like why does it take them so long to work their problems out? I assume these are 15 year olds running around in adult bodies at that point
I used to love the under 300 page books that had expansive worlds in middle grade. Occasionally I’d read a trilogy or longer, but I could dive into something for an afternoon and feel fully satisfied. Authors don’t write same way they did decades before. There’s an expectation that readers want those 400+, 10+ book encyclopedias series and I’m a reader who that 100% overwhelms. Even if you’re writing is great, the very thought that I won’t have the full grasp of things even by book 5 is overwhelming - and I’m an adult. As a kid, that’s a huge investment and that’s not just an attention span issue. You’re asking kids to consume content as if they’re a devoted adult fan of a series. I understand a lot of ppl want to recreate that feeling of “omg there’s another book!” In their favorite series, but the reality is it’s overwhelming and intimidating. (Edit to add:) it’s the same feeling when you’re looking at all the tv shows you want to watch and can’t finish and you realize how many hours of you’re life you’d actually need to complete - but you’d be 💀 lol. (Sorry for the example, but it’s the one I could think of) Some might argue that HP series did it and everyone read those, but the first 2 books at least were short! It grew with the interest it created. No one seems willing to start their series shorter. As an adult, I long for the feeling I got reading something like Tuck Everlasting as a young teen, that was literally under 250 pages and was a stand-alone, but sent me on a journey within an afternoon and had a complete story. The novella or at least shorter books need a comeback.
Shorter books? Yes, please! I don't read many traditionally published books. I'm more of an indie book girl. And even those books are getting longer and longer. Whether that's because indie authors just love writing long stories or they have fallen into the Kindle Unlimited trap (where page reads reign supreme), I wholeheartedly would love shorter books and more standalone novels. I wish indie authors (and all authors, really) would be able to make enough on their books without having to elongate their stories.
YOO, I was legit thinking of Brandon Sanderson as an example and then you mentioned him. I've read two of the stormlight archives as well, and I'm enjoying the series, but what stops him from being an excellent writer is his overwriting. He ends up repeating himself a lot, especially in regards to characters' thoughts and motivations. I promise. I got it the first time.
This is a timely video. I finished The Diviners by Libba Bray literally last night and it's just under 600 pages and I think so much could have been cut out or reworked to be shorter. And that was published in 2013
I was there when the convo started and a lady was really trying it with "the spine has to show" in response and then the authors were getting weird. They were like "Longer book authors, if the shorter vs longer books discussion is giving you anxiety, know this is a safe space." Like sister why are yall acting like victims? I do believe we need to have a deep conversation about how as adults are getting more comfortable with reading kidlit that publishing is pushing to appeal to them rather than kids as adults can actually buy their books. As someone who was reading above grade in school, I got burnt out. This year is the first time in a decade that I'm reading more than like 5 a year. Shorter books, esp on audio, have been so great. I even look at long audiobooks and think....is now the time. More short books!
I actually filmed a video(working on editing it) about this discourse because some of my Twitter friends who are mentioned in this video were really vocal about this. Adult readers are pushing kids out of what should be there space.
@@MsWOCReader it doesn't help when booktubers will praise ya books that they love as "it doesn't read juvenile" or say "say this ya feels like it's for a younger audience. Belongs in middle grade." When ya and middle grade have large age ranges. Needless to say I'll be tuning in.
I have screamed this from the mountains for so long. My physical TBR sits on my shelf all unorganized and a majority is a part of a series. Standalones are great please more standalones. I can’t keep picking up a book and it’s the 3rd in a 5 book series 😭😭 sometimes my mind can only handle a quick read
I think it’s important to remember that a lot of kids (especially those in Title I areas) don’t have time to read books as often as they want, much less LONG books. These kids have so much going on, so if they want to read, they’re definitely more likely to pick up a shorter book, or a graphic novel
For younger readers, I noticed the shift to longer books when Harry Potter became popular. I'm still able to read longer books, but lately I've been rejecting some that sound interesting primarily because of the book/series length. This has been an increasing issue since I started reading more fantasy, especially high/epic fantasy. The urban fantasy, romance and sci fi I used to prefer tended to be a little shorter. I started reading YA and MG fantasy because of the shorter books and series, but they seem to be getting longer too. I may give Tor flak for the pricing of their novellas, but I appreciate the existence of books that are short, but still interesting and entertaining. I especially like T. Kingfisher, M Wells' Murderbot and P. Djèlí Clark for this reason. When novellas aren't short enough or I can't find one that interests me, I go to manga and graphic novels because sometimes I want to enjoy a story without investing days and weeks of my life. I can only imagine how tough it is with readers who are younger or newer to reading or anyone dealing with focus/attention issues.
Thank you for this, I totally agree. IMO, it's everything you mentioned happening all at the same time, and that's overwhelming for very many people, no matter what age. A long book is an emotional investment next to all the other stuff like comprehension, deduction, suspension of disbelief, etc., and you're not going on that long, longer, the longest journey if you're already all kinds of exhausted. Like, sir/ma'am. Lemme sleep first and gather my bearings, sheesh. In the meantime, give those who want to read but can't take on behemoths shorter books. That way, they don't stop reading altogether...
Kids should always have the option to choose whether they want to read a short or long book. Getting them reading should be the priority. And not every kid has the same reading level or interests or access. So we need all types of books . Personally I loved long books as a child. The longer the better. I would've loved a 500p brick they publish nowadays! Part of it was because my parents would only buy me one or two books at a time (there were no libraries in the 90s in my country), and part of it was I loved sinking into a long story. But my bookshelf also included beautiful collections of illustrated fairy tales, Aesop's fables, and short stories by Enid Blyton, Oscar Wilde. As a teen I loved my copy of LOTR. And the HP books that kept getting bigger. But I also read spooky stories by Poe, Irving, Blackwood. These days I don't believe authors should focus so much on the page count instead of the quality. I know a book is my favourite when I forget to look at the page count and dread it coming to an end.
This, this, THIS! Some of my favorite and most memorable books growing up were the Song of the Lioness (Book 1, 216 p; Book 2, 209 p; Book 3, 228 p; Book 4, 308 p) by Tamora Pierce. Granted these were the mass market paperbacks published in the 90s, and it seems that later and more current editions have increased the page count (though still keeping it less than 400 pages). I have more leeway with my book purchasing for my library system, but still, it's shocking to see a lot of the YA titles' page count climb higher and higher each year. My cousin has a female teen and a male pre-teen, and while the teen has no qualms with reading longer books, the pre-teen is really daunted by the thickness of the books. I try to recommend different books to both of them, but it's tough to find compelling short books for the pre-teen. He should be able to find books of interest without feeling intimidated (if not calling his intelligence into question) by the tomes on the bookshelf.
I think this happens because 1) publishers have trends and experience in certain length and are reluctant to have editors evaluate narrative that fits into drastically different lengths, and 2) agents have drilled expected manuscript lengths into authors for decades now. One reason authors may end up submitting longer manuscripts is the success of other longer manuscripts on the market. Authors will plot for similar lengths, so the ms lengths will be longer, and then the lack of editing is obviously a staffing issue.
150-200 pages is my ideal book length. I love a novella in all genres- they have a lot more freedom to be high concept and explore characters/ themes/ settings/ etc that you really wouldn’t want to spend 400 pages with lol. Even the language itself can be much richer if the book is shorter (this is how you lose the time war comes to mind). Unfortunately not every author can write or wants to write a book that short- the structure pacing etc is totally different. That’s what makes a novella hit so different though, it feels like it’s breaking some rules just to be that short. I wonder if that plays into why we don’t have as many high profile novellas every year, vs how much has to do with publishing. They do exist tho girl, hit me up if you want recs!
I feel this so much. Also, not to be that person, but somebody's got to, so I guess I'm gonna be that person... but the absolute ABLEISM of this shit. Some people (kids and adults) struggle with mental illness and/or chronic physical illness that limits their time, energy, and attention. Some people are ADHD and so have a harder time making the initial investment into something they aren't sure they're going to like or not. I'm AuDHD, and I was a voracious reader as a kid. But I also had Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Boxcar Kids, Babysitters Club, the Redwall books, the Madeline books, Goosebumps, Chronicles of Narnia - a plethora of options across many different genres that generally averaged out around 200 pages or less. Things that hooked you fast and didn't overstay their welcome, which made reading approachable and left me feeling accomplished when I managed to finish a whole book on a weekend despite my tendency to space out and get distracted or bored with things and struggle to refocus, rather than ashamed of myself because I couldn't maintain interest long enough to finish anything. Even now, as an adult, I've been trying so hard to get back into reading and the struggle is real because everything is just so dang LONG. I can't even imagine how much worse it would be if I were just approaching books for the first time as a kid, without that background love of stories already fully intrenched. And people act like neurodiverse people don't exist. Like we're all just too lazy to put in the effort to enjoy good things, rather than having actual differing NEEDS. We exist. Neurodiverse kids exist. And they deserve to be able to learn to love reading just like I did.
HARDCORE AGREE. I've been sick of the overly long books and what seems like minimal editing. I do not need to know everything ever about a world. And i'm the kind of person that adores descriptions. But you can have a beautifully detailed book under 500 pages. Under 400 even! Many of my favorite books are quite small (Ursula K. Le Guin was a queen for so many reasons, and this is one of them). The only obnoxiously long book that i can think of that really earned its length is Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
I think our shrinking attention spans is something that definitely needs to be talked about but at the same time we all know books that are far far too long. Cassandra Claire books come to mind for me.
I've read somewhere authors write that long books because Amazon pays per page(for ebook versions)? Also, Babel and Spanish love deception are similar in length 😂😂 pp.s. Japanese and Korean books are usually shorter around 200 pages if anyone needs shorter books.
Kindle ebooks are priced by the author/publisher, it's kindle unlimited that pays authors by how much someone reads. So it can tend towards longer books but it only counts still if it's getting read.
i know it's a controversial example but like, the bricks i was reading at 10 were harry potter books.... which started at around 200pgs and grew thicker as i grew up, giving me the time to adjust (and i was reading above average). most books i read between the ages of 7-10 were around 200-300pgs tops. and these were entire series! like i don't think a single princess diary book clocked 400pgs.
As a person who is willing to read long books. I'm not a social media person either. But when I visit the library I have increasingly been looking for shorter books. Plus a quick read can be very helpful to jump back into longer books.
I won't call out any romance authors...Lucy Score....lol but her books are crazy long. I can't speak to quality because I just started Things We Never Got Over, but dang! I agree though, there should be variety, space and access to all books page counts, etc. Love your channel!
New here! Subbed after watching this video and the hockey BookTok video. I agree 100%. The school I work for has a reading program that offers tickets to performances, sports games, etc for reading 30 books in one school calendar year. Only one student reached that goal last year. She already liked to read. Every other student struggled to read one book per quarter. Really miss kids' novellas like Goosebumps and The Babysitters' Club. Kids, especially ones reading under grade level, need easy reads. Tired of finding a book with content my students would LOVE but the length itself would make them turn it down. Literacy is an immensely important skill. Books are one way to introduce kids to important parts of language like vocabulary and grammar. Not surprised that publishers are focusing on profits. But I think we should hold them more accountable for the role they have in allowing access to new material and the impact that has on the next generation.
Your videos are always so chaotically good. I so agree, we need shorter books for children AND adults. I feel like children books started getting hella long because of the HP books.
Well said and valid supporting examples of why we need these shorter books. It’s also inspiring for me because I find myself only needing to write short stories and pressuring myself to build more. This definitely gives me the push that I needed to know I’m in the right direction.
Shorter books are just more accessible. There's a series in the UK, I'm sure they have equivalents elsewhere, called Quick Reads aimed at adults with learning difficulties or who are just less confident readers. They are short books by big-name authors that have big type and are also cheap to buy. I like them to get me out of a slump, or when I'm just busy and overwhelmed, and would recommend them to everyone. Everyone, kids and adults, can be intimidated by big books, and this doesn't make them less intelligent or less committed readers. It is not an "attention economy" issue nor is it a new phenomenon (we just didn't respect or listen to kids as much in the past). Tied in with this discourse is the idea that if you're a "proper" reader then you should love your bricks which is just judgemental and discriminatory. This conversation is connected with all the other snobbery around reading (e.g. over-valuing classics and western perspectives) and we need to diversify, decolonise and dismantle publishing in various ways.
I read an article years ago that said the Harry Potter books set the trend for longer books. Perhaps it's true. I remember when HP was popping (before the movies) my then coworker bought whatever book in the series and showed it to me. I was like dang, that's a hella large book for a kid. She agreed and said but I read it too. A few years later I started seeing the trend of larger books. On the publisher end they are thinking if it worked for HP then let's catch lightning and do it too. On the self publishing side it can be page turns = more money. Also, reading apps like Radish, they encourage authors to have longer stories across all genres. 🤷🏾♀️
A list of middle-grade books I read as a child and their page length: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - 245 pages Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - 272 pages Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - 128 pages Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - 176 pages American Girl books - (Series' about different girls by different authors) ~70 pages each The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner - 154 pages Middle grade does not need to be more than 300 pages.
Thank You Jess! Yes yes yes! I focus mostly on novellas and short stories myself (both as a reader and as a publisher). If you ask me, it's the Short Story - not the novel - which is the most advanced literary artform!
I’m so happy you did a video on this topic. I have been going out of my way to buy shorter books like from Seanan McGuire’s wayward series and T. Kingfisher so that way the publishing community can see that these books are wanted. I feel like some of my favorite books as a child felt so big and then I looked them up as an adult and they were only like 250 pages. 😅 so clearly variation is needed.
I love short books too! And short chapters! I struggle with a lot of books that are over the 350 mark and there’s a lot of fluff that doesn’t need to be there😫
I was a slow reader and bless the short middle grade book. Also, the teachers and librarians that took the time with me. They saw a love for reading and they helped and encouraged. I didn’t have a short attention span. If anything I was very focus when I liked a book because it took me a hell of a lot longer to get through than the better readers. The Boxcar Children, Goosebumps, and the Romona series or any Beverly Cleary. Short short short. These long MG books are from people who never struggled as a student.
I remember as a kid and reading that wizard book that should not be named. It started as a short book and gradually increased in length, but that was fine because I was also growing along with the books.
Options for all! Big books are intimidating. Even if you are a proficient reader with time on your hands to read it can be so hard to start a big book (looks at TBR shelf in agreement). Also, I love the chaos of your bookshelves because I'm having fun seeing what I can spy! I spy two Beverly Jenkins books! Love Homegoing and The Bluest Eye resting atop other books!
This is so interesting to think about. Some of my favorite books as a kid were Roald Dahl’s novels, Beverly Cleary’s novels (the Ramona books), Series of Unfortunate Events, Nancy Drew books, Encyclopedia Brown books, and Shel Silverstein’s poetry. I don’t think any of those books were super long. My parents also bought a set of abridged illustrated classics that were pretty short and I read quite a few of those. I remember attempting to read Little Women in 5th grade for a book project and I couldn’t get it done in time because it was so long and I lost steam and never finished. It’s one of my favorite books now but I wasn’t ready for that length and pace of writing at 10 years old. Some of my favorite reads this year have been on shorter side as well. I absolutely loved Piranesi and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Am I currently reading The Starless Sea which is pushing 500 pages? Yes. Do I need to balance it out with a short story collection that’s 230? Also yes. Variety of length and pace keeps me excited about reading and feeling like I’m actually getting through books.
Totally agree! Children's and MG like Boxcar Children, Babysitter's Club, all the Beverly Cleary, the Wrinkle in Time series, etc. were not very long books. I'm reading Ken Liu's 3rd Dandelion Dynasty book, which is just shy of 1000 pages, and it *really* needed to be split into two or three books at least (and this is after he apparently already split what was supposed to be the last in a trilogy into the 3rd and 4th books 💀). And honestly, his short fiction is his real strength. Quality isn't tied to length either, there are great books from classics like A Christmas Carol to modern masterpieces like This Is How You Lose the Time War.
When I was 17 and one of my teachers encouraged us to read non-school books a older friend of mine recommended Hermann Hesse's Demian. Over the years that followed I read more of his books, all of them were short and easy to understand. He is considered a classic author as many of his books were awarded with the Nobel prize for literature. His books were also very affordable and the themes explored are very easy to relate to for teenagers. The point is that short books already exist! You just have to look for them instead of waiting for people to write new ones. Also looking at old books helps you pick out the best ones, not settle for whatever mediocre thing is printed next.
I just finished amari and the night brothers and while I was reading I was thinking that it was a shame the book wasn't separated into a shorter multi-book series. I think it would have helped with some of the issues with the world building and made it easier for some casual readers to pickup. As of right now idk if kids are reading it and it would be such a shame if only adults are picking it up.
as someone who was always reading a grade below than my peers (had a speech disorder that bled into reading issues), but I was able to overcome those challenges and learn to love books with reading the magic treehouse series, the wedding planner's daughter, judy moody, etc. Reading fun series that were not intimidating with adult references, long pages, and challenging vocabulary helped me enjoy reading. I know vocabulary for younger kids has grown because I have seen my niece's vocabulary list, who is in 2nd grade, learning words I did not know until maybe middle school. However, these are still kids who deserve to explore fun stories.
My best friends and I are doing a reread of the Dear America books in our book club. It’s been awesome because they’re short and we can knock one out in a weekend before we talk about it. They were great when we were kids, and they’re good now as stressed adults. Everyone deserves books that aren’t intimidating. ALSO, for the romance folks. I just enjoyed Denise Williams’s Love and Other Flight Delays. It’s a collection of three novellas and the total page count is under 400 pages.
I agree and it might be one of the reasons why graphic novels have become so popular. When i was a kid -- and that was a long, long time ago -- I read a mixture of comic books, young adult fiction, and harlequin romances. Harlequin romances were rarely longer than 200 pages. It's when historical romances started getting popular in the 1970s that romances became longer running over 400 pages. The Flame and The Flower was over 400, so they immediately began to feel "epic".
I’ve been reading so many short books this year, lots of t kingfisher and seanan mcguire! It’s honestly been so refreshing and so good, it’s motivating to be able to finish a book quickly. Looking at a tbr of short to medium books makes me miles more excited to read than a tbr of long ass books I know I’ll struggle with
As a kid I was reading a tonne of Darren Shan and L J Smith stuff, all around 150-200 pages! Sealed my love of reading. Bring back shorter books in all ranges I stg
Agree with you in all this Jess! I love an adult standalone, its really rare these days. Also, the padding is out of the world too, and results in a lower quality experience.
This is so true right now. I'm heavy in different subgenres of romance and when I go to look at a book and see it's over 400 pages I don't pick it up. Not unless I'm already invested in the series or really trust the author. There is a lack of developmental editing in books and it shows. It is an industry problem for sure, but if we make enough of a stink about it maybe something can change.
I have weird feelings about books, cuz on one hand I LOVE stories but on the other hand I was an avid book hater until sophomore or junior year of highschool and I was always about two grades below my reading level. Books that are overly long, have confusing prose, or use uncommon "smart" words get a hard No from me. Never been good at reading, so I always hated it. If I'm gonna read something it needs to be easy to understand and NOT a million pages. I also miss when books had chapter titles and little pictures. I don't think they're childish at all and I think more Adult books should have them. I've still only read like ten actual books total. And it's not that I'm opposed to long stories as a whole. One Piece is my favorite story of all time. But super long books just feel so inaccessible. A story like One Piece is released chapter by chapter or episode by episode (since it's a comic/anime.) And I think that format is just overall better. Volumes of manga are almost never more than like an inch thick. And since they have pictures, there are even LESS words in them than a novel. If someone gave me the option of a 7 book series (200 pages per book) or a 3 book series (500 pages per book), I'm gonna choose the 7 book one. Smaller books also just give you more time to breathe and absorb what you read because there's appropriate stopping points. My thoughts were kinda jumbled there but the tldr is that smaller books (even when part of a long series) are far more accessible and inticing than long books (imo).
i only just started reading more in my life within the last 2 years, so when i noticed that ya/adult books were really long and i just wanted some light reading i was like "maybe i'll look into middle grade! that'll help ease me into reading more." i was so shocked to see so many 400+ page middle grade books these days and i, a 27 year old, was intimidated to start. i can't imagine how daunting those things could be for actual kids in the middle grade demographic to the point of deterring them from ever trying to read them. i was under the impression that middle grade books these days were the same lengths and font sizes as middle grade books when i was a kid, like what's happening here?? 😭
I agree so much with all of this. I am a lifelong avid reader. I was that kid growing up that was above reading level and would search out the longest, chunkiest books I could find. But even I, after finishing those epics, would spend several weeks reading much shorter books because even though I enjoyed them, long stories get tiring in many ways. Variety is wonderful. As an adult now my tastes actually tend more towards shorter series and standalones because honestly I'm sick and tired of long books these days. I may be romanticizing but I feel like the long books of my youth were only that long because it suited the story (mostly), not because it was the trend to up the word count. Long books these days frequently have the things I like least about the long books I didn't even finish as a kid: too wordy, unnecessary or way too drawn out scenes, boring filler and reusing plot beats (constant misunderstandings in the romance subplot anyone?). these days I'm hesitant to start anything long, book or series, for fear that I'm going to get attached and then have my time wasted for hundreds of pages before the conclusion finally comes and it doesn't feel worth it anymore. Never thought the day would come when I would finish more books wishing they had ended sooner rather than wishing there was more.
In terms of, like, middle grade length, something I noticed about the books I loved as a kid (Percy Jackson, warrior cats, stuff like that) is that when the books did get longer, they got longer much later into the series or at a point where I was already so invested that my love for the series made the length less daunting. Like, the first Percy Jackson series probably around 200-300 ish words per book (I think??? I don’t have any on me so I can’t check) but then the second series got much longer (probably 400 something pages). Same with warriors- the main series books were always 200ish pages but if you were a big fan they also had longer standalone books that focused on one specific character. So, like I said, longer books in kid’s series usually came at a time when you were already invested enough that the extra time was worth it (plus you had smaller books in the series to “warm up” with). I can’t really think of many middle grade series that right off the bat at 400-500 pages (that I read and enjoyed, anyway)
I haven't really noticed this problem...but I also read a lot of short stories and poetry collections and novellas and bind ups of these type of things. So as a result I am constantly engaging with shorter books, but a lot of the times I do have to order them in and I don't find them at bookstores. I also usually have to track them down to get recommendations for books that fits these categories.
Oh yeah definetly. This year finally got me back into reading. My page average per book is around 350 pages and I won't pick up anything over 500 pages even as an adult xD. 300-350 pages is my perfect book length. I have to say that most books I have read over that could have been shortened at some point and have a boring phase that you have to kinda force yourself to get through somewhere in the middle. On the art part: This Is How You Lose the Time War tells a complex story and is pure art on 200 pages.
attention span points aside, i have read very few books (Babel excluded) that need to be as long as they were, and i find myself not wanting to even pick up new fantasy releases bc they are so dang long, no one can convince me that those were edited carefully (side note but The Master of Djinn is one of the best examples i can think of for immense worldbuilding and tight plot and characters in 400 pgs). And don't even get me started on romance, if i see a romance has more than ~320 pgs or the audio is longer than 10 hours, i'm out lol
As an author, I often feel pressure to write LONG books. (I had a MG manuscript that an agent said wasn't "edgy" enough for the market, too.) I'm lucky if my books pass 300 pages. Call me concise, I guess... But (shameless plug) if you want a shorter YA, try "The Ghosts of Marshley Park." 313 pages and winner of a BookFest award. For MG, I recommend Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly books. Short and SO FUN.
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We need more authors like T Kingfisher who can write a complete stories (for adults or children) in 300-350 pages tops.
Came here to say this!
More Cassandra Khaw and Nghi Vo! Complete stories in 125 pgs or less.
Kingfisher is a great example for the critique as well though, because most of the books have been indie/self, not major publishers, which means sadly lower availability, especially in libraries.
@@ReadBecca And she writes fun kids books, too. My kids loved the Dragonbreath series and the Hamster one
@@marzipan9 Absolutely, I've liked the several Hamster Princess books I've read and the first Dragonbreath, my favorite of her childrens works is Castle Hangnail though!
People complaining that kids just have short attention spans are ignoring the obvious; if you’re concerned that a kid can’t pay attention, giving them a book they can complete quickly is a better starting point than giving them something they can’t possible hope to finish. And, if you have an older kid who is still struggling to read, having short books for mature readers, not just middle grade books, is super important - I learned to read pretty late and as I grew older, the books which were reading level-suitable for me became boring because they were aimed at little kids. Getting my hands on a better range of short, non-intimidating, books with plots that were of interest to a teenager helped me gain my footing and eventually become a strong reader.
I think they make middle grade and YA longer because a lot of adults read them
I agree with this, but I think they should keep in mind who it’s actually marketed towards. I like MG and YA sometimes but I’m not the audience for it, and I hate to think it’s being targeted towards me
Yes! Shorter books, please. I mean, I have loved long books. And there are some books I don't want to end. But...there are SO.many books where it just gets too wordy or scenes just drag on and on and just need to end. My sweet spot is probably 250-300. I'm also reading multiple books at a time, because the ADHD is real folks.
Yesss 250-300 is perfect but these days even middle grades are longer than that
Jess, middle grade is very long now. The discourse started because someone who was either a librarian, educator, parent or both pointed out that we need less 400+ page middle grade books. The kids aren't reading them because they're intimidated and kids are instead reading more graphic novels and comics if they read at all. Points were made that they are targeting more adult readers with the higher page counts and advanced vocabulary.
Yeah, I remember seeing where it started in MG too. People were trying to rewrite history saying that MG books were long and I'm like..."Sweet Valley Twins" and books like that were not tomes.
@@t.a.summersI’m not sure I would have considered Sweet Valley Twins middlegrade, but the lines were pretty blurred even back then. I would consider middlegrade to be anything appropriate for an upper elementary child to middle school. YA would be appropriate for a high schooler. Sweet Valley Twins and Goosebumps and things of that length were books I was reading in lower elementary school, so I would consider them children’s.
@@LexTime89 SWT was definitely middle grade for some of the original line books because of the storyline ("Goodbye Middle School" being one title as an example). They were on a lower reading level for kids to understand, but the reading age rec for those books were ages 8-12. And as someone who grew up with those books and absolutely read them during middle school, I'd make an argument that they resonated with me then.
There was also the Sweet Valley Twins Jr High series as well, which followed Jessica and Elizabeth in 8th grade.
Agree.
@@t.a.summersabsolutely. And they had the Unicorn Club, etc, books for SV properties. Equivalent to BSC, I'd say. I was the target audience and remember zipping through between more complex books.
contemporary romances being the same length as fantasies now is concerning, what more can you write after 300 pages in a romance? they get together and they're happy we don't need to know that they got married and had kids
I write contemporary romance and I can’t figure out how people are writing them 300 pages and more. Maybe I don’t have enough subplots lol but mine are like 200 pages if that
Yes, I've noticed and don't like it.
I read a 700+ page slow burn romance. The burn was so slow I froze to death and will not be picking that series back up any time soon. Oh yeah... it's a series.
Lmao reminds me of The Spanish Love Deception. Heard that the REAL action starts around the 70% mark, and is being promoted as "slow burn" and I was like "For a slow burn, it really needs to be this thick??? Huhh??😀".
Also, those Lucy Score books... they're romance books AND they're hella thickk. Oh my God what was the author even thinking writing romance books for THAT LONG??🫠😖😣
@@Kagekid01 😂
As a private tutor and teacher, I find myself giving my students some books from my childhood or older books as middle grade books were like 200-300 pages MAX when I was coming up. Honestly so many of these students are 2 grades below reading level. You give them a 400+ page book and they already feel defeated.
If you give me a 400-pager, I'd DNF immediately. Lol
When I was in college the best writing teacher I had said when editing you should be cutting every third word. Advice to live by!!! I feel like editors are falling asleep at the job these days because every 400+ page book I’ve read in the last three years has been about a third longer than it needed to be.
I’m real tired of people saying they want to support DEI and not think that includes meeting kids where they are. This whole “attention span” conversation is giving elitism and ableism.
Ageism as well. Adults don't give kids grace. Kids have a harder time doing the same things they do, but adults want to force them to grow up faster than to let them just be a kid.
A sampling of books I read between 4th grade and 6th grade as an incredibly advanced reader who read well above grade level all through school.
Hatchet: 208 pages
Julie of the Wolves: 176 pages
My Side of the Mountain: 177 pages
The Report Card: 173 pages
The Clique: 220 pages
Royal Diaries: Around 238 pages
Dear America: Around 204 pages
1st Diary of a Wimpy Kid book: 226 pages
Middle grade books have not always been 300-500 pages long and kids are suffering because of it.
The length is only half the story when it comes to advanced reading. It also involves the ability to comprehend complex ideas and topics. I’m not familiar with the books you listed, but I read Gone with the Wind and Jane Eyre in the 4th grade.
Yes shorter books please!!! I just heard an snippet of a NPR story and they were talking about how elementary and middle school kids did not learn as much as before the Pepperoni and would need like 4 more months to catch up with the previous years. So imagine these kids who may not like reading anyway trying to give a new interesting book a chance but its 300+ pages! As an adult, I'd think twice about reading it too!
Even now I hesitate to read any of the most recent series because they're just too long. I legitimately got upset when I realized that
Ordinary Monsters wasn't a standalone after I read it. I saw how big it was and just figured that it HAD to be a standalone.
Wait wait wait THE PEPPERONI 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 that took me out 😂😂😂😂
Ok back to the important stuff, I can’t imagine what the kids are going through already struggling to catch up and having these chonky books to read. And omg I thought Ordinary Monsters was a stand-alone too!!!
@@JessOwens Gurl no it's supposed to be a trilogy according to Goodreads. It was good but omg why so loooonngg 😩
No lie, when I'm interested in a book I go on Goodreads and look at the page count. If it's over 400 I question if I'm THAT interested. And if it's a romance over 400? Nah.
Same here. Is it really worth the effort?
Honestly, ever since I started Japanese and Korean Literature (translated), nearly most of the books tend to be a lot shorter than I thought they are. But other genres? It's super duper long and even romance books now are longer than they should be. Hell, even dragging the plot for the "slow burn to happen" or "to make the suspense more happening!" or whatever nonsense authors think they're doing🫤
And I agree with you, shorter books for the win!
Yes to this! Lots of translated Japanese novels and those from Latin America showed me that you can tell satisfying stories in 200 pages.
In my opinion, a book should only be over 450 pages if it has multiple main characters (at least 3) and at least two major plotlines. This is more common in epic fantasy, which is why they are longer. Series often elevates side characters into more prominent roles in the narrative, so that's probably why they get longer over time.
Stormlight Archive I think is fine because the intent of the book is to be expansive and cover a lot of detail, hence the interludes. Not for everyone, but I'm glad these types of books exist, especially when they are that good. Those types of books are pretty rare, anyway, but the run of the mill fantasy could use a good 15-20% hacked off its length.
YES! If we want to create lifelong readers we must have something to hook them. A great story that doesn't drag is so important for kiddos. They have to be able to develop a love of reading before they can push through a great book that may have a small portion that stalls and bogs down. If educators and librarians that are working directly with this population are asking for this based on their experience, it would be best to listen to them. Keep writing and publishing the chonky books for the kids that are there BUT please start writing and publishing for the kids that will get there if we give them the chance. AND, I agree, we need this for adults too because even when we are already a voracious reader there are times when we just want a nice short book with a great story to get us through or to keep us going after a big epic read. Just let us have a variety PLEASE writers and publishers. Open those ears and hear the people.
Oh - and - some of these are not my words, my five-year-old said some of this while eating her cheerios this morning. 🤣🤣🤣 She is very smart and worldly. Oh - and - I don't have a five-year-old but I wanted to appear to have raised a freaking little genius because I think it makes me look good on the internet. Why y'all laughin'? She said it. Seriously, why do these people say stuff that everyone knows is BS? People, Please - just stop.
KELLEY OMG 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I was like, wait, Kelley has a 5 year old??? 💀💀
Yessss all of this. Short, accessible books are needed to not make reading feel like a chore
@@JessOwens Just my imaginary 5-year-old genius to use when commenting on socials. 🤣🤣🤣
For anyone looking for shorter books a lot of Japanese literature is quite short and has an easy to digest writing style. (Convenience Store Woman for example). Kevin Wilson writes short books that I personally connect with a lot, and he has a fantastic short story collection. Cozy mysteries are always easy to read during times of high anxiety and tend to be capped at 300 pages! I like graphic novels too to stay motivated.
I agree though it is hard to find a broader selection of literature that is short and easy to process during times of poor mental health.
1000% yes!! My kiddo is a little above his reading level at age 5, and we're starting to dip into chapter books, but I'm having to HUNT for things that don't intimidate him. He's totally capable of reading complex stuff, but when he sees the amount of words on a page he won't try. It's NATURAL. You have to ease kids into longer stuff, and sometimes they never get comfortable with it, and THATS OK. There needs to come a point where we stop confusing "ability" with "preference".
Also, even making the wild belief that that 5 year old child actually uttered those words.... it is darn close to child abuse to be making your kids think about heavy topics at that age. Wait until they're more mature to start crushing their spirit about capitalism.
Honestly I can count on ONE hand the number of 400+ pages book I've read that warranted that many pages.
I agree there needs to be more shorter book options. As a parent, my child often brought home chucky books but never touched them, but when we'd select a shorter one at our local library, they'd actually read it.
I read Goosebumps as a kid. Those books ranged from 114 pages to 127 pages. From what I've seen as a high school English teacher is that people's attention span is getting shorter for many reasons, including struggling with mental illness. Why are people completely forgetting that in this discussion? Also YASS to everyone Bethany Jonathan Baptiste said.
Elliot Brooks actually mentioned that she was starting to really enjoy Novellas in Fantasy and the quality of writing can be shown through short books. I agree on this front because a lot of the books I grew up with and helped me read so much more and faster was actually Mercades Lackey, Robin McKinley and Anne McCaffery. Those books are absolutely delightful to read through with how much shorter they are. And they wrote both series and standalones, and Anne McCaffery even wrote books even *shorter* than 100 (i read a 94 page book of hers and the story was a standalone and I loved it so much) I just picked up A Wizard of Earthsea and I was wonderfully delighted when I saw how short it was for the *one* book. I know that the ombibus is.... a massive tome to say what it is, but the one, single book is far smaller than I expected and it's nice to have it far shorter as I want to take my time right now with it and at my own pace.
Another smaller book series? The Enchanted Forest Chronicals. Four books, and all of them about maybe 230-300 pages. They're not long. But the story it tells is wonderful. The Theif Lord by Cornilla Funke? Yo, that book is what got me into the aurthor as I loved the story, and I went in deeper with Inkheart (I still think Inkheart should have been a standalone instead of a Trilogy. It was fine with how it ended.) There's reason why Japan does the Light Novels series, they're shorter and easiser to read in bite size way when people have time. I do absolutely enjoy longer tomes but right now I'm trying to break that up with shorter books so I can feel at least accomplished that I'm getting back into reading. (I'm loving Lies of Locke Lamora, but damn is that long....)
And to call back at those people's bullshit... most of these books were written between the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s..... "Back in my day" not all books were fucking bricks and these aurthors were popular in their time. You don't know page counts people.
For romance, imho, it really started ballooning when authors were debuting in Trade Paperback, instead of Mass Market Paperback. Trade is more expensive, so romance authors whose manuscripts were 250-300 pages, i.e. the length of an MMP, had to be padded. AND IT SHOWED. I remember clearly reading 10 Romance Trade Paperback length books in a row, and liking two of them, finishing 2 more that were ‘meh’, and DNF’ing 6. I hesitate in a big way now to even start one.
So if I’m feeling it, a seasoned reader of 48 years, I can’t imagine the struggle for middle grade readers 😢
I love good shorter stories. I think it actually takes more skill to tell a story in as few words as possible without making it feel rushed or crowded. My only issue with short books is the price. It doesn't reflect the length of the book. (Looking at you Wayward Children series, Singin Hills Cycle, Murderbot, ... 👀👀👀)
A book isn't cheaper to make because it's shorter, the paper is a tiiiiny bit of production cost
And there might just be the real answer why everyone is being encourage to write long - it’s to keep printing costs as profitable as possible. Myself I really REALLY miss the old mass market paperback formats. Portable and affordable. That size is nearly extinct, everything is huge trade paparback now.
And when an author debuted, it was rare to have a first print be in hardcover - now it’s the norm. So I highly suspect the format of the books has a lot to do with the change over the years.
You are so right in this video. My students are in high school and they need shorter books, too! I also think the comment about books needing to justify their length was on point. Readers give their free time to the authors whose books they pick up, and books should either have a real need to be long or ditch the bloat.
As someone who struggled with dyslexia as a kid. Having shorter books which are more accessible for kids who were like me, it would be super nice. Percy Jackson was a good option when I was younger, but I struggle to think of any recent examples
The way I read, I usually choose a longer book followed by a shorted one. Both are important and a lot of times shorter books are really well written becuase they are down to the bare bones of what is necessary for the story. Not every middle grade/young adult book has to be Harry Potter length. My children all enjoy reading but they also love to pick up quick reads, especially my youngest (11) she feels pretty accomplished when she can sit down and read a book quickly.
i recently started a reread of the Wayward Children series because of this. i just have no mental capacity for longer drawn out plots with all the bullsh*t going on in the world rn. even with this series, the books are taking me a week or so to finish. 2 years ago id have read each book in a day. WE WANT SHORTER BOOKS! ty
I agree with you when it comes to adult books especially for established authors. I feel like editors just let them go on and on. I wonder if the editors feel like the authors know what their readers like you they do feel the need to tell them to cut stuff out.
Agreed. A lot of books being published today are longer because they're poorly edited--not because their stories warrant 400-plus pages. Publishing houses need to do better imo.
Lol my First response was “let me get my childhood books out.” I have an entire shelf + of them and they are all so small. 😅 why do you think we all remember reading so many books? Bc they were like 150 pages long and had like 72 of them in a series. 🤣 goosebumps, dear America, Nancy drew, boxcar kids, animorphs, dahl… I could keep going.
My now 11yo and I have been reading through all of the Percy Jackson books over the last 2 years and the first series was on the longer side but were great balance for her age and comprehension. the next series, the books were twice as long (google says 150k words!!!) and it was a bit of a struggle even though we liked the story and characters more overall than the first series. Trials of Apollo are the shortest I think and it was a immediate and noticeable difference.
I love reading and it’s really starting to feel like even the stories I enjoy are become a slog to get through. I can’t even go pick up some new middle grade for a quick, enjoyable read bc I look at them and they’re just as long as my adult sff 🥲
Yessss Boxcar Children, Animorphs, Nancy Drew!!!! None of these were long books. Idk what that person was reading. But they were short and compulsively readable. Easy to read multiple per week!
I still reread the Animorphs books on a regular basis. Those books were amazing, and as an adult they take me all of 20 minutes to read. Delicious, love it. Gonna go read about my war criminal traumatized children!
also i think the reason kids/middle grade books are chunkers now is because of the HP Effect. Books definitely got bigger after that series came out and I think publishers are hoping to attract people outside of the actual middle grade reading audience. Same reason you'll see many YA books these days with 18 yr old protagonists instead of 15 or 16 yr olds, they want the books to appeal to older readers at the same time.
YES and amen. I'm middle-aged and I can assure you that with a few exceptions, books were on average much thinner when I was in my 20s and 30's.
I do wonder if the trend toward chonky MG books has something to do with the fact that (a) as that educator's posts pointed out, a bunch of people who read middle-grades are whole-a$$ adults (me and my sisters, lol) so if the thicker ones sell well, publishers are like "A-HA!" (though the sad fact is, they're the shortest books I read except for novellas)
and/or also (b) the effect of Rick Riordan and she-who-must-not-be-named putting out bigger books as the readers get "older" but let's be honest: There were 6-year-olds reading the last Huge Property book by that second author, which was ridiculous, but it could have given publishers the idea that this was a "new normal" for the MG age range.
A tip from your local library worker: make use of the purchase request option on your library’s website. Happy reading!!
This is a good conversation because I've noticed one of the reasons could be that we're in a new generation. I remember reading a book by a new author two years ago, sent to me for an honest review and I remember reading it and thinking how different the style was, like the line and copy editing. Reading it felt much different than books I've read today and I looked up the author and he's like 70! And then I went back and looked at older books from when he would have been younger and they had that similar structure grammatically. There were rarely any run-on sentences, he didn't use any conjunctions. He would end a sentence and start another one, no connecting the two. And think about it, if you look at a lot of elderly people, born in the 50s 60s, even the 70s, the way they spoke, the way they wrote was much more precise, much more to the point. They didn't take long to say what they needed to say or over explain.
A lot of (not all) of the books that came out in that time were shorter compared to now. And I feel as if that really is a representation of a changing generation. This generation writing now, uses too many words to say what they got to say. The way they use words is just more lengthy, even looking at videos where people are explaining things they take a longer time to get to a point than let's say if I was watching a documentary or an interview from the 70s where people had learned to be articulate and precise with their words and that precision lends to short sentences, which leads to shorter paragraphs, etc. You understand what I mean. Yes, IT IS publishing and Amazon with their paying authors per pages read so more pages read means more money. It's all of that contributing to books being too long for no reason, but we also need to consider that this generation just doesn't know how to say more with less words. If I was a part of the older generation I'm sure this paragraph would be much shorter and I would still make my point.
I'm the same with childhood books, I read the Sweet Valley books and they probably ran 160-200 ish pages. I would say Priory of the Orange Tree earned its length but most books don't.
Totally agree about priory of the orange tree
For me 350 is max for romance some of them are out here 500-700 pages and im like why does it take them so long to work their problems out? I assume these are 15 year olds running around in adult bodies at that point
I used to love the under 300 page books that had expansive worlds in middle grade. Occasionally I’d read a trilogy or longer, but I could dive into something for an afternoon and feel fully satisfied. Authors don’t write same way they did decades before. There’s an expectation that readers want those 400+, 10+ book encyclopedias series and I’m a reader who that 100% overwhelms.
Even if you’re writing is great, the very thought that I won’t have the full grasp of things even by book 5 is overwhelming - and I’m an adult. As a kid, that’s a huge investment and that’s not just an attention span issue. You’re asking kids to consume content as if they’re a devoted adult fan of a series. I understand a lot of ppl want to recreate that feeling of “omg there’s another book!” In their favorite series, but the reality is it’s overwhelming and intimidating. (Edit to add:) it’s the same feeling when you’re looking at all the tv shows you want to watch and can’t finish and you realize how many hours of you’re life you’d actually need to complete - but you’d be 💀 lol.
(Sorry for the example, but it’s the one I could think of) Some might argue that HP series did it and everyone read those, but the first 2 books at least were short! It grew with the interest it created. No one seems willing to start their series shorter.
As an adult, I long for the feeling I got reading something like Tuck Everlasting as a young teen, that was literally under 250 pages and was a stand-alone, but sent me on a journey within an afternoon and had a complete story. The novella or at least shorter books need a comeback.
Shorter books? Yes, please! I don't read many traditionally published books. I'm more of an indie book girl. And even those books are getting longer and longer. Whether that's because indie authors just love writing long stories or they have fallen into the Kindle Unlimited trap (where page reads reign supreme), I wholeheartedly would love shorter books and more standalone novels. I wish indie authors (and all authors, really) would be able to make enough on their books without having to elongate their stories.
YOO, I was legit thinking of Brandon Sanderson as an example and then you mentioned him. I've read two of the stormlight archives as well, and I'm enjoying the series, but what stops him from being an excellent writer is his overwriting. He ends up repeating himself a lot, especially in regards to characters' thoughts and motivations. I promise. I got it the first time.
This is a timely video. I finished The Diviners by Libba Bray literally last night and it's just under 600 pages and I think so much could have been cut out or reworked to be shorter. And that was published in 2013
I also finished this same book last night with that exact same thought. Like, I saw the audiobook length and went “what the hell?”
I was there when the convo started and a lady was really trying it with "the spine has to show" in response and then the authors were getting weird. They were like "Longer book authors, if the shorter vs longer books discussion is giving you anxiety, know this is a safe space." Like sister why are yall acting like victims? I do believe we need to have a deep conversation about how as adults are getting more comfortable with reading kidlit that publishing is pushing to appeal to them rather than kids as adults can actually buy their books. As someone who was reading above grade in school, I got burnt out. This year is the first time in a decade that I'm reading more than like 5 a year. Shorter books, esp on audio, have been so great. I even look at long audiobooks and think....is now the time. More short books!
I actually filmed a video(working on editing it) about this discourse because some of my Twitter friends who are mentioned in this video were really vocal about this. Adult readers are pushing kids out of what should be there space.
@@MsWOCReader it doesn't help when booktubers will praise ya books that they love as "it doesn't read juvenile" or say "say this ya feels like it's for a younger audience. Belongs in middle grade." When ya and middle grade have large age ranges. Needless to say I'll be tuning in.
I have screamed this from the mountains for so long. My physical TBR sits on my shelf all unorganized and a majority is a part of a series. Standalones are great please more standalones. I can’t keep picking up a book and it’s the 3rd in a 5 book series 😭😭 sometimes my mind can only handle a quick read
I think it’s important to remember that a lot of kids (especially those in Title I areas) don’t have time to read books as often as they want, much less LONG books. These kids have so much going on, so if they want to read, they’re definitely more likely to pick up a shorter book, or a graphic novel
For younger readers, I noticed the shift to longer books when Harry Potter became popular.
I'm still able to read longer books, but lately I've been rejecting some that sound interesting primarily because of the book/series length. This has been an increasing issue since I started reading more fantasy, especially high/epic fantasy. The urban fantasy, romance and sci fi I used to prefer tended to be a little shorter.
I started reading YA and MG fantasy because of the shorter books and series, but they seem to be getting longer too.
I may give Tor flak for the pricing of their novellas, but I appreciate the existence of books that are short, but still interesting and entertaining. I especially like T. Kingfisher, M Wells' Murderbot and P. Djèlí Clark for this reason.
When novellas aren't short enough or I can't find one that interests me, I go to manga and graphic novels because sometimes I want to enjoy a story without investing days and weeks of my life.
I can only imagine how tough it is with readers who are younger or newer to reading or anyone dealing with focus/attention issues.
Thank you for this, I totally agree. IMO, it's everything you mentioned happening all at the same time, and that's overwhelming for very many people, no matter what age.
A long book is an emotional investment next to all the other stuff like comprehension, deduction, suspension of disbelief, etc., and you're not going on that long, longer, the longest journey if you're already all kinds of exhausted. Like, sir/ma'am. Lemme sleep first and gather my bearings, sheesh. In the meantime, give those who want to read but can't take on behemoths shorter books. That way, they don't stop reading altogether...
Kids should always have the option to choose whether they want to read a short or long book. Getting them reading should be the priority. And not every kid has the same reading level or interests or access. So we need all types of books .
Personally I loved long books as a child. The longer the better. I would've loved a 500p brick they publish nowadays! Part of it was because my parents would only buy me one or two books at a time (there were no libraries in the 90s in my country), and part of it was I loved sinking into a long story. But my bookshelf also included beautiful collections of illustrated fairy tales, Aesop's fables, and short stories by Enid Blyton, Oscar Wilde. As a teen I loved my copy of LOTR. And the HP books that kept getting bigger. But I also read spooky stories by Poe, Irving, Blackwood.
These days I don't believe authors should focus so much on the page count instead of the quality. I know a book is my favourite when I forget to look at the page count and dread it coming to an end.
This, this, THIS! Some of my favorite and most memorable books growing up were the Song of the Lioness (Book 1, 216 p; Book 2, 209 p; Book 3, 228 p; Book 4, 308 p) by Tamora Pierce. Granted these were the mass market paperbacks published in the 90s, and it seems that later and more current editions have increased the page count (though still keeping it less than 400 pages). I have more leeway with my book purchasing for my library system, but still, it's shocking to see a lot of the YA titles' page count climb higher and higher each year.
My cousin has a female teen and a male pre-teen, and while the teen has no qualms with reading longer books, the pre-teen is really daunted by the thickness of the books. I try to recommend different books to both of them, but it's tough to find compelling short books for the pre-teen. He should be able to find books of interest without feeling intimidated (if not calling his intelligence into question) by the tomes on the bookshelf.
I think this happens because 1) publishers have trends and experience in certain length and are reluctant to have editors evaluate narrative that fits into drastically different lengths, and 2) agents have drilled expected manuscript lengths into authors for decades now.
One reason authors may end up submitting longer manuscripts is the success of other longer manuscripts on the market. Authors will plot for similar lengths, so the ms lengths will be longer, and then the lack of editing is obviously a staffing issue.
150-200 pages is my ideal book length. I love a novella in all genres- they have a lot more freedom to be high concept and explore characters/ themes/ settings/ etc that you really wouldn’t want to spend 400 pages with lol. Even the language itself can be much richer if the book is shorter (this is how you lose the time war comes to mind). Unfortunately not every author can write or wants to write a book that short- the structure pacing etc is totally different. That’s what makes a novella hit so different though, it feels like it’s breaking some rules just to be that short. I wonder if that plays into why we don’t have as many high profile novellas every year, vs how much has to do with publishing. They do exist tho girl, hit me up if you want recs!
I feel this so much. Also, not to be that person, but somebody's got to, so I guess I'm gonna be that person... but the absolute ABLEISM of this shit. Some people (kids and adults) struggle with mental illness and/or chronic physical illness that limits their time, energy, and attention. Some people are ADHD and so have a harder time making the initial investment into something they aren't sure they're going to like or not. I'm AuDHD, and I was a voracious reader as a kid. But I also had Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Boxcar Kids, Babysitters Club, the Redwall books, the Madeline books, Goosebumps, Chronicles of Narnia - a plethora of options across many different genres that generally averaged out around 200 pages or less. Things that hooked you fast and didn't overstay their welcome, which made reading approachable and left me feeling accomplished when I managed to finish a whole book on a weekend despite my tendency to space out and get distracted or bored with things and struggle to refocus, rather than ashamed of myself because I couldn't maintain interest long enough to finish anything. Even now, as an adult, I've been trying so hard to get back into reading and the struggle is real because everything is just so dang LONG. I can't even imagine how much worse it would be if I were just approaching books for the first time as a kid, without that background love of stories already fully intrenched. And people act like neurodiverse people don't exist. Like we're all just too lazy to put in the effort to enjoy good things, rather than having actual differing NEEDS. We exist. Neurodiverse kids exist. And they deserve to be able to learn to love reading just like I did.
HARDCORE AGREE. I've been sick of the overly long books and what seems like minimal editing. I do not need to know everything ever about a world. And i'm the kind of person that adores descriptions. But you can have a beautifully detailed book under 500 pages. Under 400 even! Many of my favorite books are quite small (Ursula K. Le Guin was a queen for so many reasons, and this is one of them). The only obnoxiously long book that i can think of that really earned its length is Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
I think our shrinking attention spans is something that definitely needs to be talked about but at the same time we all know books that are far far too long. Cassandra Claire books come to mind for me.
I've read somewhere authors write that long books because Amazon pays per page(for ebook versions)?
Also, Babel and Spanish love deception are similar in length 😂😂
pp.s. Japanese and Korean books are usually shorter around 200 pages if anyone needs shorter books.
Kindle ebooks are priced by the author/publisher, it's kindle unlimited that pays authors by how much someone reads. So it can tend towards longer books but it only counts still if it's getting read.
i know it's a controversial example but like, the bricks i was reading at 10 were harry potter books.... which started at around 200pgs and grew thicker as i grew up, giving me the time to adjust (and i was reading above average). most books i read between the ages of 7-10 were around 200-300pgs tops. and these were entire series! like i don't think a single princess diary book clocked 400pgs.
As a person who is willing to read long books. I'm not a social media person either. But when I visit the library I have increasingly been looking for shorter books. Plus a quick read can be very helpful to jump back into longer books.
As an aspiring author who struggles to write really long fiction and loves reading shorter books, I will keep this in mind. ❤
I won't call out any romance authors...Lucy Score....lol but her books are crazy long. I can't speak to quality because I just started Things We Never Got Over, but dang! I agree though, there should be variety, space and access to all books page counts, etc. Love your channel!
New here! Subbed after watching this video and the hockey BookTok video. I agree 100%. The school I work for has a reading program that offers tickets to performances, sports games, etc for reading 30 books in one school calendar year. Only one student reached that goal last year. She already liked to read. Every other student struggled to read one book per quarter.
Really miss kids' novellas like Goosebumps and The Babysitters' Club. Kids, especially ones reading under grade level, need easy reads. Tired of finding a book with content my students would LOVE but the length itself would make them turn it down.
Literacy is an immensely important skill. Books are one way to introduce kids to important parts of language like vocabulary and grammar. Not surprised that publishers are focusing on profits. But I think we should hold them more accountable for the role they have in allowing access to new material and the impact that has on the next generation.
Yes yes yes please! More short books and single book story arcs. Especially In Fantasy!
But that Usher Tiny Desk though. The Babyface one shows how deep his influence has been.
Your videos are always so chaotically good. I so agree, we need shorter books for children AND adults. I feel like children books started getting hella long because of the HP books.
Look at the lists of Hugo and Nebula nominated novellas and short stories for ideas - there are some really good ones! A place to start.
Well said and valid supporting examples of why we need these shorter books. It’s also inspiring for me because I find myself only needing to write short stories and pressuring myself to build more. This definitely gives me the push that I needed to know I’m in the right direction.
No because that Juvenile tiny desk?? The bar is up there at the pearly gates because that was top tier
Shorter books are just more accessible. There's a series in the UK, I'm sure they have equivalents elsewhere, called Quick Reads aimed at adults with learning difficulties or who are just less confident readers. They are short books by big-name authors that have big type and are also cheap to buy. I like them to get me out of a slump, or when I'm just busy and overwhelmed, and would recommend them to everyone.
Everyone, kids and adults, can be intimidated by big books, and this doesn't make them less intelligent or less committed readers. It is not an "attention economy" issue nor is it a new phenomenon (we just didn't respect or listen to kids as much in the past). Tied in with this discourse is the idea that if you're a "proper" reader then you should love your bricks which is just judgemental and discriminatory. This conversation is connected with all the other snobbery around reading (e.g. over-valuing classics and western perspectives) and we need to diversify, decolonise and dismantle publishing in various ways.
I read an article years ago that said the Harry Potter books set the trend for longer books. Perhaps it's true. I remember when HP was popping (before the movies) my then coworker bought whatever book in the series and showed it to me. I was like dang, that's a hella large book for a kid. She agreed and said but I read it too. A few years later I started seeing the trend of larger books. On the publisher end they are thinking if it worked for HP then let's catch lightning and do it too. On the self publishing side it can be page turns = more money. Also, reading apps like Radish, they encourage authors to have longer stories across all genres. 🤷🏾♀️
A list of middle-grade books I read as a child and their page length:
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - 245 pages
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - 272 pages
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - 128 pages
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - 176 pages
American Girl books - (Series' about different girls by different authors) ~70 pages each
The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner - 154 pages
Middle grade does not need to be more than 300 pages.
Thank You Jess! Yes yes yes!
I focus mostly on novellas and short stories myself (both as a reader and as a publisher).
If you ask me, it's the Short Story - not the novel - which is the most advanced literary artform!
I'm writing a shorter book right now! And it has a happy ending ❤
I’m so happy you did a video on this topic. I have been going out of my way to buy shorter books like from Seanan McGuire’s wayward series and T. Kingfisher so that way the publishing community can see that these books are wanted. I feel like some of my favorite books as a child felt so big and then I looked them up as an adult and they were only like 250 pages. 😅 so clearly variation is needed.
I love short books too! And short chapters! I struggle with a lot of books that are over the 350 mark and there’s a lot of fluff that doesn’t need to be there😫
I was a slow reader and bless the short middle grade book. Also, the teachers and librarians that took the time with me. They saw a love for reading and they helped and encouraged. I didn’t have a short attention span. If anything I was very focus when I liked a book because it took me a hell of a lot longer to get through than the better readers.
The Boxcar Children, Goosebumps, and the Romona series or any Beverly Cleary. Short short short. These long MG books are from people who never struggled as a student.
I remember as a kid and reading that wizard book that should not be named. It started as a short book and gradually increased in length, but that was fine because I was also growing along with the books.
This! The books aged up with the target audience, so it made sense that book 7 was so long
The past few years I have been obsessed with novellas. If I find an audiobook for less than 5 hrs, I’m golden!!! 🎉 2-3 hours, over the moon!!!
Welcome back Queen Jess. Love your hair, and also your jumper rocks.
Options for all! Big books are intimidating. Even if you are a proficient reader with time on your hands to read it can be so hard to start a big book (looks at TBR shelf in agreement).
Also, I love the chaos of your bookshelves because I'm having fun seeing what I can spy! I spy two Beverly Jenkins books! Love Homegoing and The Bluest Eye resting atop other books!
This is so interesting to think about. Some of my favorite books as a kid were Roald Dahl’s novels, Beverly Cleary’s novels (the Ramona books), Series of Unfortunate Events, Nancy Drew books, Encyclopedia Brown books, and Shel Silverstein’s poetry. I don’t think any of those books were super long. My parents also bought a set of abridged illustrated classics that were pretty short and I read quite a few of those. I remember attempting to read Little Women in 5th grade for a book project and I couldn’t get it done in time because it was so long and I lost steam and never finished. It’s one of my favorite books now but I wasn’t ready for that length and pace of writing at 10 years old.
Some of my favorite reads this year have been on shorter side as well. I absolutely loved Piranesi and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Am I currently reading The Starless Sea which is pushing 500 pages? Yes. Do I need to balance it out with a short story collection that’s 230? Also yes. Variety of length and pace keeps me excited about reading and feeling like I’m actually getting through books.
Ive just finished two books at at the end of each one I thought "well that could have been 75 pages shorter". So yes Jess we want shorter books !
Totally agree! Children's and MG like Boxcar Children, Babysitter's Club, all the Beverly Cleary, the Wrinkle in Time series, etc. were not very long books.
I'm reading Ken Liu's 3rd Dandelion Dynasty book, which is just shy of 1000 pages, and it *really* needed to be split into two or three books at least (and this is after he apparently already split what was supposed to be the last in a trilogy into the 3rd and 4th books 💀). And honestly, his short fiction is his real strength.
Quality isn't tied to length either, there are great books from classics like A Christmas Carol to modern masterpieces like This Is How You Lose the Time War.
When I was 17 and one of my teachers encouraged us to read non-school books a older friend of mine recommended Hermann Hesse's Demian.
Over the years that followed I read more of his books, all of them were short and easy to understand. He is considered a classic author as many of his books were awarded with the Nobel prize for literature.
His books were also very affordable and the themes explored are very easy to relate to for teenagers.
The point is that short books already exist! You just have to look for them instead of waiting for people to write new ones.
Also looking at old books helps you pick out the best ones, not settle for whatever mediocre thing is printed next.
Hollowpox is worth the length! Love me some nevermoor
I just finished amari and the night brothers and while I was reading I was thinking that it was a shame the book wasn't separated into a shorter multi-book series. I think it would have helped with some of the issues with the world building and made it easier for some casual readers to pickup.
As of right now idk if kids are reading it and it would be such a shame if only adults are picking it up.
as someone who was always reading a grade below than my peers (had a speech disorder that bled into reading issues), but I was able to overcome those challenges and learn to love books with reading the magic treehouse series, the wedding planner's daughter, judy moody, etc. Reading fun series that were not intimidating with adult references, long pages, and challenging vocabulary helped me enjoy reading. I know vocabulary for younger kids has grown because I have seen my niece's vocabulary list, who is in 2nd grade, learning words I did not know until maybe middle school. However, these are still kids who deserve to explore fun stories.
My best friends and I are doing a reread of the Dear America books in our book club. It’s been awesome because they’re short and we can knock one out in a weekend before we talk about it. They were great when we were kids, and they’re good now as stressed adults. Everyone deserves books that aren’t intimidating.
ALSO, for the romance folks. I just enjoyed Denise Williams’s Love and Other Flight Delays. It’s a collection of three novellas and the total page count is under 400 pages.
I agree and it might be one of the reasons why graphic novels have become so popular. When i was a kid -- and that was a long, long time ago -- I read a mixture of comic books, young adult fiction, and harlequin romances. Harlequin romances were rarely longer than 200 pages. It's when historical romances started getting popular in the 1970s that romances became longer running over 400 pages. The Flame and The Flower was over 400, so they immediately began to feel "epic".
I’ve been reading so many short books this year, lots of t kingfisher and seanan mcguire! It’s honestly been so refreshing and so good, it’s motivating to be able to finish a book quickly. Looking at a tbr of short to medium books makes me miles more excited to read than a tbr of long ass books I know I’ll struggle with
As a kid I was reading a tonne of Darren Shan and L J Smith stuff, all around 150-200 pages! Sealed my love of reading. Bring back shorter books in all ranges I stg
In tears at the unhinged "books don't need to be this long" rant 😂😂😂.
Agree with you in all this Jess! I love an adult standalone, its really rare these days. Also, the padding is out of the world too, and results in a lower quality experience.
This is so true right now. I'm heavy in different subgenres of romance and when I go to look at a book and see it's over 400 pages I don't pick it up. Not unless I'm already invested in the series or really trust the author. There is a lack of developmental editing in books and it shows. It is an industry problem for sure, but if we make enough of a stink about it maybe something can change.
I have weird feelings about books, cuz on one hand I LOVE stories but on the other hand I was an avid book hater until sophomore or junior year of highschool and I was always about two grades below my reading level. Books that are overly long, have confusing prose, or use uncommon "smart" words get a hard No from me. Never been good at reading, so I always hated it. If I'm gonna read something it needs to be easy to understand and NOT a million pages. I also miss when books had chapter titles and little pictures. I don't think they're childish at all and I think more Adult books should have them.
I've still only read like ten actual books total. And it's not that I'm opposed to long stories as a whole. One Piece is my favorite story of all time. But super long books just feel so inaccessible. A story like One Piece is released chapter by chapter or episode by episode (since it's a comic/anime.) And I think that format is just overall better. Volumes of manga are almost never more than like an inch thick. And since they have pictures, there are even LESS words in them than a novel. If someone gave me the option of a 7 book series (200 pages per book) or a 3 book series (500 pages per book), I'm gonna choose the 7 book one. Smaller books also just give you more time to breathe and absorb what you read because there's appropriate stopping points.
My thoughts were kinda jumbled there but the tldr is that smaller books (even when part of a long series) are far more accessible and inticing than long books (imo).
i only just started reading more in my life within the last 2 years, so when i noticed that ya/adult books were really long and i just wanted some light reading i was like "maybe i'll look into middle grade! that'll help ease me into reading more." i was so shocked to see so many 400+ page middle grade books these days and i, a 27 year old, was intimidated to start. i can't imagine how daunting those things could be for actual kids in the middle grade demographic to the point of deterring them from ever trying to read them.
i was under the impression that middle grade books these days were the same lengths and font sizes as middle grade books when i was a kid, like what's happening here?? 😭
I agree so much with all of this. I am a lifelong avid reader. I was that kid growing up that was above reading level and would search out the longest, chunkiest books I could find. But even I, after finishing those epics, would spend several weeks reading much shorter books because even though I enjoyed them, long stories get tiring in many ways. Variety is wonderful. As an adult now my tastes actually tend more towards shorter series and standalones because honestly I'm sick and tired of long books these days. I may be romanticizing but I feel like the long books of my youth were only that long because it suited the story (mostly), not because it was the trend to up the word count. Long books these days frequently have the things I like least about the long books I didn't even finish as a kid: too wordy, unnecessary or way too drawn out scenes, boring filler and reusing plot beats (constant misunderstandings in the romance subplot anyone?). these days I'm hesitant to start anything long, book or series, for fear that I'm going to get attached and then have my time wasted for hundreds of pages before the conclusion finally comes and it doesn't feel worth it anymore. Never thought the day would come when I would finish more books wishing they had ended sooner rather than wishing there was more.
In terms of, like, middle grade length, something I noticed about the books I loved as a kid (Percy Jackson, warrior cats, stuff like that) is that when the books did get longer, they got longer much later into the series or at a point where I was already so invested that my love for the series made the length less daunting. Like, the first Percy Jackson series probably around 200-300 ish words per book (I think??? I don’t have any on me so I can’t check) but then the second series got much longer (probably 400 something pages). Same with warriors- the main series books were always 200ish pages but if you were a big fan they also had longer standalone books that focused on one specific character. So, like I said, longer books in kid’s series usually came at a time when you were already invested enough that the extra time was worth it (plus you had smaller books in the series to “warm up” with). I can’t really think of many middle grade series that right off the bat at 400-500 pages (that I read and enjoyed, anyway)
I missed this conversation when it happened on Twitter so I appreciate your recap here!
I haven't really noticed this problem...but I also read a lot of short stories and poetry collections and novellas and bind ups of these type of things. So as a result I am constantly engaging with shorter books, but a lot of the times I do have to order them in and I don't find them at bookstores. I also usually have to track them down to get recommendations for books that fits these categories.
Yes to the adults are struggling, love your energy hahah, let's hope the publication industry will listen 🙏🏼🤓
Not the 5-year-old, I'm screaming 😂😂😂
Oh yeah definetly. This year finally got me back into reading. My page average per book is around 350 pages and I won't pick up anything over 500 pages even as an adult xD. 300-350 pages is my perfect book length. I have to say that most books I have read over that could have been shortened at some point and have a boring phase that you have to kinda force yourself to get through somewhere in the middle.
On the art part: This Is How You Lose the Time War tells a complex story and is pure art on 200 pages.
attention span points aside, i have read very few books (Babel excluded) that need to be as long as they were, and i find myself not wanting to even pick up new fantasy releases bc they are so dang long, no one can convince me that those were edited carefully (side note but The Master of Djinn is one of the best examples i can think of for immense worldbuilding and tight plot and characters in 400 pgs). And don't even get me started on romance, if i see a romance has more than ~320 pgs or the audio is longer than 10 hours, i'm out lol
As an author, I often feel pressure to write LONG books. (I had a MG manuscript that an agent said wasn't "edgy" enough for the market, too.) I'm lucky if my books pass 300 pages. Call me concise, I guess... But (shameless plug) if you want a shorter YA, try "The Ghosts of Marshley Park." 313 pages and winner of a BookFest award. For MG, I recommend Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly books. Short and SO FUN.
First book you pull out of your shelf is the one in currently reading! 🤯