What's a good "young readers" wordcount?

[Steven Lake]

I'm looking to write a children's story in the near future, one along the reading level of "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". IE, the young readers level. What would be an appropriate word count (approximately) for something of that size? I ask about this because I use wordcounts as a guide when doing my rough draft to be sure I've got enough content, as I tend to short my stories in the rough draft form if I don't. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[jaxx6166]

Hey Steven! Glad to see a familiar face.

I've actually never read that one. What sort of age group are you targeting?

I think if you're striving for 4 - 8 years old and doing like a picture book style, you want to keep it shorter than 1,000 words and limit the actual text/word count to be short on dialog, heavy on story.

If you're going for 8 - 11, you could expand it to about 10 - maybe 20,000 for a "Chapter" style book.

11 - 15, I'd go up to about 30,000 - 50,000. Maybe more.

Then again, I picked up and put down Tolkein when I was 12 and read The Sword of Shannara when I was a preteen/young teenager.

Books like Good Night Moon can't be any more than 200 words...

See if you can get yourself a copy of the scholastic book club flyer they pass out to students and check a couple of the books out at your local bookstore, compare your sizes with the numbers in your head

[rhadin]

I'm not sure how much of a guideline there really is. I know several 8- and 9-year-olds who have read every Harry Potter book. My own children read The Hobbit at 6 years of age, albeit with some help from me. But I think Rowling has demonstrated that there need be no word count limit; content is significantly more important.

[Steven Lake]

Originally Posted by jaxx6166

Hey Steven! Glad to see a familiar face.

Yeah, sorry I've been gone so much. Real life has kinda killed my internet free time lately. ^_^;;

I've actually never read that one.

REALLY!? Wow, you've missed out on a great book then.

What sort of age group are you targeting?

Probably age 6-12 or so.

...and read The Sword of Shannara when I was a preteen/young teenager.

I didn't discover that book until a couple of years ago. Totally loved it.

Originally Posted by rhadin

I'm not sure how much of a guideline there really is. I know several 8- and 9-year-olds who have read every Harry Potter book. My own children read The Hobbit at 6 years of age, albeit with some help from me. But I think Rowling has demonstrated that there need be no word count limit; content is significantly more important.

Yeah, I know. That's where my confusion came in. Hence why I was looking for an "average" word count to go by. Again, word count doesn't matter in the end, but for me it makes a good writing tool to get me started. It's most useful in forcing me to expound my ideas. Otherwise I have a habit of falling back into my short story writing mentality and shortchanging things.

[Harper Kingsley]

Here's the guide I found--

manuscript page = 250 words

picture books - age 4-8 = up to 1500 words, with 1000 being average

early/easy readers - age 6-8 = 32-64 pages long, with 200-1500 words of text, occasionally going up to 2000.

transition books - early chapters for age 6-9 = about 30 manuscript pages broken into 2-3 chapters
Chapter books for ages 7-10 are about 45-60 manuscript pages broken into 3-4 page chapters

middle grade - age 8-12 = 100-150 manuscript pages

young adult - age 12+ = 130-200 manuscript pages

books for kids 9-12 = acceptable length is about 40,000 words.
Matilda = 40,009
Double Fudge = 38,860
Hoot = 61,113

Hope that helps

[Steven Lake]

Thanks Harper!

[jaxx6166]

Wow. Harper r0x0rZ!

Excellent guide!

[Harper Kingsley]

I have a kids/young adult series I've been sketching out. I can't draw worth crap, so I'd have to hire someone for illustrations. But something like the Mouse and the Motorcycle, they didn't have pictures inside, did they? I don't think the Fudge books did either. Harry Potter had chapter heading pictures.

Do you think I should get some black-white illustrations? What are you going to do?

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by Harper Kingsley

Here's the guide I found--


<snip

Hope that helps

Thanks, Harper, it did, and got you some K.

On this issue, I have to say I tend to think more in terms of no of words. I reckon (based on counting from a number of adult books) 400 words to a page, but I guess it will be fewer with childrens' books (larger type at earlier ages).

Anyone done any research on this aspect?

[Steven Lake]

Harper, Mouse and the Motorcycle did have some pictures in it, but they were scattered randomly throughout the book. I'd say there was maybe 20 in total and highlighted or clarified some of the more memorable or difficult to visualize scenes.

[crich70]

As far as illustrations it would also depend on if you are self publishing or going with a traditional publisher as well. If you go with self publishing then you the author choose but if you go with the traditional publisher then it's likely they would have someone on staff who would do the illustration work. At least that's my understanding. You will want to make sure your vocabulary isn't too advanced for the age group as well. Dr. Seuss had a vocabulary of some 236 words in his book "The Cat in The Hat". Sometimes less really is more I guess. Good luck with your project Steven.

[Eisengoth]

Originally Posted by Harper Kingsley

Here's the guide I found--

manuscript page = 250 words

picture books - age 4-8 = up to 1500 words, with 1000 being average

early/easy readers - age 6-8 = 32-64 pages long, with 200-1500 words of text, occasionally going up to 2000.

transition books - early chapters for age 6-9 = about 30 manuscript pages broken into 2-3 chapters
Chapter books for ages 7-10 are about 45-60 manuscript pages broken into 3-4 page chapters

middle grade - age 8-12 = 100-150 manuscript pages

young adult - age 12+ = 130-200 manuscript pages

books for kids 9-12 = acceptable length is about 40,000 words.
Matilda = 40,009
Double Fudge = 38,860
Hoot = 61,113

Hope that helps

That is really an excellent guideline! I know a couple of people who have worked on children's books in the past, so it's great information to have put so concretely.

Thanks for finding that! I'm going to copy that down and put it somewhere so that I can remember it later.

[Strayer]

It depends on the story. Write the book and go over it until you are sure it is right.
The only question I ask myself is, does the book work?
If it does, it's done.
If it doesn't, mull it over.
I think asking questions like how long a book should be is starting at the wrong end of the horse.

[Eisengoth]

Originally Posted by Strayer

I think asking questions like how long a book should be is starting at the wrong end of the horse.

Not necessarily. If you're looking for trade publication, you need to understand the expectations for the genre that you're writing in.

You need to know, for instance, that no agent or publisher will take on your 50,000 word fantasy novel, even though it's a finished story. It's never going to happen, because it's too short for them. However, if it were YA fantasy, or middle-grade fantasy, 50,000 might be perfectly fine.

If you're self-publishing, it doesn't matter as much, but if you're looking to go mainstream, it's a good idea to know what your target is.

[Steven Lake]

Eisengoth is spot on with that one.