There. I said it.

It’s hard to talk about books when nobody’s on the same page. You think somebody would have unified format names by now. Different groups have different ideas. From publishers to stores to libraries to teachers and of course, kids. Things can’t help get a little muddied.

But I can still complain about it.

A Pantheon of Names

Board Books>Picture Books>Early Readers>Chapter Books>Middle-Grade>Young Adult

These are commonly accepted terms for the different formats in kidlit. I’m going to assume you know the differences between them. It doesn’t really matter in a world without order.

First of all, these names are all over the place:

Board Books are named after the material of the product.
Picture Books cares about the content. Because there aren’t pictures in board books.
Early Readers refers to the target audience.
Chapter books sure do have chapters, but so do Middle-Grade and Young Adult books.
Middle-Grade we’re back to target audience.
Young Adult is also target audience.

Yes, I know these names describe important relevant aspects of the books. Board book material is important since a kid that age will chew on and otherwise damage the book. Picture books have those big colorful pictures to show kids. Early readers assume a kid is beginning their reading journey. Chapter books have full-on chapters for budding readers. Middle-Grade and Young Adult tell a person who can read now what books are for them. I get it.

That doesn’t mean we couldn’t agree on one categorization. Age seems like a pretty good start.

Not convinced this is a problem? Let’s go a little deeper then.

Board Books and Picture Books

These tend to come in a variety of sizes, especially picture books. Besides making my shelf look terrible, it makes it really confusing what even is a picture book anymore. Activity books are pretty big too, but those aren’t picture books. Normal adult books can also be big and have pictures. Is my annotated The Hobbit book a picture book? Doubtful. What about art books? Those are really big and have pictures.

This isn’t really name-related, so I’ll move on.

Early Readers

Early Readers are also known as “Easy Readers”. Sure, that conveys the same thing as “Early”.
They’re also known as “Levelled Readers”. What’s a level, you ask? Well, that depends on the publisher.

HarperCollins’ I Can Read books have four levels: My Very First, My First, Level 1 (Beginning Reading), Level 2 (Reading With Help), Level 3 (Reading Alone), and Level 4 (Advanced Reading).

Penguin’s Young Readers have four levels: Level 1 (Emergent Reader), Level 2 (Progressing Reader), Level 3 (Transitional Reader), and Level 4 (Fluent Reader). These are further broken down into “Guided Reading Levels” A-P.

Simon and Schuster’s Ready to Read books have five levels: “Ready-to-Go!”, Pre-Level 1, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.

Boy those names sure are confusing. They all imply that these books are for readers that can read, but it’s pretty clear from the breakdowns that half these levels are still meant to be accompanied by a parent.

Are these levels at least consistent with each other? Is a Level 1 Simon book the same as a Level 1 Penguin book?

No? Maybe?

Let’s look at “Level 1” from all three of these companies:

I Can Read Level 1 books focus on “short sentences, familiar words, and simple concepts for children eager to read on their own.”

Young Readers Level 1 books focus on “Simple vocabulary, word repetition, picture clues, predictable story and sentence structures, and familiar themes and ideas”.

Read to Read Level 1 books focus on “High frequency sight words”, “simple plot and dialogue”, “familiar topics and themes”, and “Reading Level”. By “Reading Level” they refer to G-L Fountas & Pinnell level and Lexile text levels. Of course.

So maybe these are all talking about similar things, but none of them use any of the same terms or concepts.

Chapter Books

Chapter books are actually split into two categories: Transitional Chapter Books and Chapter Books.

Transitional chapter books have pictures on every page, shorter chapter lengths, and simpler words. Captain Awesome is a transitional chapter book.
Chapter books have far less images and they’re usually in black and white. Sometimes more chapters too along with them being longer and having harder words. Clementine is a chapter book.

Oh, and some publishers also name their their chapter book categories like they do Early Readers.

Scholastic has their Branches (Transitional) and Acorn (chapter book) series. HarperCollins has Harper Chapters. Simon and Schuster has Little Simon (Chapters).

Middle-Grade

Whose grades are we talking about here? America’s? The United Kingdom’s? (Spoilers: It’s America’s.)

Middle-Grade books are generally targeted at American grades 3-6, which isn’t really in the middle of K-12. Just grade 6 is. 3 is on the lower end. Grade 7 is closer to the middle than 4 is.

Also does Middle-Grade need a dash or not? Does “Grade” need to be capitalized? It’s the wild west out here.

Young Adult

Young Adult (or YA) books also have a subtle distinction that isn’t always named: the separation between 12+ and 14+. 14+ books tend to have more adult concepts, like sex, drugs, violence, language, and abuse.

Not to mention “Young Adult” has “Adult” in the name, so are the target audience adults or not? I know plenty of people that aren’t young that read Harry Potter.

Graphic Novels and Comic Books

But wait, there’s more! I’m grouping these into one section for the sake of the article, but they’re technically different formats.

Graphic novels and comics both have a heavy focus on pictures. They’re not picture books though, don’t worry.

Graphic novels tend to be longer and cover a full story. They’re novels with pictures, it’s in the name. Babymouse is an example of a graphic novel targeted at kids.

Comics tend to be shorter and cover a story across a long period of time, or multiple stories across a long serialization. Phoebe and Her Unicorn is an example of a comic book targeted at kids.

I didn’t talk about these earlier, because graphic novels and comic books are formats that exist outside of kidlit as well as inside of it. There’s comics for adults and comics for kids. Same with graphic novels. They’re not strictly kidlit formats. They don’t conform to any particular age group, like the other formats we’ve seen so far.

But they still exist in kidlit so let’s count them.

The New Gods

So when all is said and done, we actually end up with a pantheon of:

Board Books>Picture Books>Early/Easy/Levelled Readers (with dealer’s choice levels)>Transitional Chapter Books>Chapter Books>Middle-Grade>Young Adult (YA)

And graphic novels and comic books living on their own demiplane between worlds.

Think it’s confusing now? No?

Formats In the Real World

Walk into any Barnes and Noble. Now check out a used book store. Try a library while you’re at it. Chances are, their names for formats vary. We’ve seen many formats go by many names already. More importantly, the books on those shelves are grouped differently than you might think. Maybe a library doesn’t have room to give Early Readers and Chapter Books different shelves. They’re basically the same thing, right? Maybe a used bookstore has a lot of Middle-Grade books and only a few Picture Books. Maybe a retail chain wants to show off the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book on its own table and nowhere else. Good luck finding the format you want.

When a book becomes popular, publishers can also print it in multiple formats, for greater accessibility. This usually only happens in the realm of Board Books and Picture Books. Check out the different versions of Olivia and Fancy Nancy.

Most books initially get a hardcover print run, traditionally for library use. Did you know that a lot of Early Readers lose their level banner when printed in hardback? Because they do. Check out the Penny series.

Earlier I assumed you knew the differences between these formats, but do you? Ask ten kidlit-inclined people you know “What kind of kids are [insert format name] books for?” I bet you’ll get some people that talk in age and others in grade level. Hopefully they’ll all at least be correct.

Individual Books

Is Pizazz a Middle-Grade book? Its topics sure are. Its character sure is. Is it a Graphic Novel? It has more images than a normal Middle-Grade book, and comic panels too! It even has chapters!

Is the Madeline series really a bunch of picture books? Madeline almost drowns in book 2 and Pepito almost gets killed by dogs in book 3. They both get kidnapped by gypsies in book 4. Pretty adult topics if you ask me. Caldecott winner indeed.

Goodreads seems to think Judy Moody is a Chapter Book and a Middle-Grade book.

Wait…can books be considered to be in many formats? Well that’s a problem.

Not to mention people regardless of age can enjoy books outside their target format. There’s plenty of kids that read Chapter Books when they’re ten or YA books when they’re younger than twelve.

Conclusion

That’s it. I’m out of breath.

Oh, you thought I was going to propose a solution to all this chaos? No, I’m fully aware I’m shouting into the void here. I don’t think there’s any fixing anything at this point. Just read what looks cool, or educate yourself more on the finer points of formats. This article only scratched the surface.