We need more 13 y.o. protagonists! 14!

Hand holding a library book. Illustration with a boy and girl glancing at each other. Both are holding their cell phones. The phones have speech bubbles coming out of them like ones that appear while texting. In the background is a school. Three other girls are looking at them in various poses. The cover says “Confessions From the Group Chat by New York Times bestselling author Jodi Meadows.”

Worth reading for 13-year-old group texting capital D Drama.

TITLE: Confessions From the Group Chat
AUTHOR: @jodimeadows.bsky.social
AGENT: @laurenmacleod.bsky.social Aevitas Creative Mgmt
PUB: Mora Couch, Holiday House 2025. Art Liz Parkes

#mglit #amquerying #writersky #middlegrade #bookrec #mg

Great log line!

We were so rad.

Absolutely! If I'm reading about the right person, she's a former editor herself.

Who is her agent?

Hand holding an older library book. Cover says “The Adrian Mole Diaries, by Sue Townsend.” A gold round sticker says, “Britain’s sensational bestseller 5 million copies sold.” There is an illustration on the bottom half of the cover. It depicts a hand holding a green pen writing in cursive on a lined piece of paper, “My father got the dog drunk on Ch.” The hand hasn’t completed the sentence yet.

Worth reading for a very British, very R-rated forefather to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

TITLE: The Adrian Mole Diaries, Books 1 & 2
AUTHOR: Sue Townsend
AGENT: Jonathan Lloyd @curtisbrownltd.bsky.social
PUB: Grove Press (in US) 1982

#kidlit #mglit #booksky #middlegrade #bookrec #suetownsend #mg

I like your suggestion to write a synopsis when things aren't working. The dreaded synopsis...

What a great cover!

I totally agree that the book should be THEIR choice and there should be no judgment about it.

Hand holding a library book with a primarily dark blue illustrated cover. A line drawing of a girl holding a notebook is surrounded by random objects that have been connected by a single line drawn by a pen. The cover says “The Moon Without Stars by Chanel Miller.”

Worth reading for the raw, gritty, and astonishingly real emotions of middle school relationships.

TITLE: The Moon Without Stars
AUTHOR: Chanel Miller
AGENT: Sterling Lord Literistic
PUB: PHILOMEL @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social 2026

#kidlit #mglit #booksky #writersky #middlegrade #bookrec #mg

Wow, that cover!

Six yellow sticky notes are stuck to the concrete surrounding a pool. Each note has a single word, writing THE SAVAGES HAVE ENTERED THE POOL. The slide also says “An Agent’s Guide, Middle Grade Contemporary, 44K words, by Megan Hirsch.”

The slide says “Pitch.” It shows a yellow sticky note stuck to the concrete surrounding a pool. There is water splashed near the note. The text reads: “Clara Brody is a lonely twelve-year-old until she meets a girl vacuuming her sidewalk. For a rich kid, Clara has a whole lot of nothing. She’s invisible to her narcissistic mom, terrified of saying the wrong thing, and overtly bullied by her best friend, Macy. But Clara’s too busy scrambling to find a ride from her grandmother’s house to Macy’s big annual pool party to notice how awful things are. If Clara hopes to have any friends in eighth grade, she needs to be at this party. Or else. But Clara just can’t get a break. Nobody will give her a ride, especially her icy-cold grandmother who communicates through sticky notes; her mom has run off to Fiji and left her with no credit card and no way to contact her; plus, Macy doesn’t even want her at the pool party. When Clara meets the nut jobs who live next door to her grandmother, along with her gardener’s son, Clara can’t see beyond the end of her nose. But if Clara doesn’t start thinking for herself and open her eyes to the escalating abuse from her so-called friends, then eighth grade at her fancy-pants private school is going to be one desolate year.”

The slide reads “Comps.” A striped beach towel has the book BUSTED by Gemeinhart and the THREE RANCHEROS series by DiCamillo placed on it. “Laugh-out-loud” dialogue similar to BUSTED, “authentic MG internal conflicts” similar to DiCamillo’s series, and “small details make characters feel human” similar to both comps.

Text is overlaid over swimming pool water. It is titled “Chapter 1 Snippet.” It reads: “The spinner rack where the shoelaces dangled squeaked as Clara turned it. She kept her head down but lifted her eyes to see if anyone was watching her. Binder’s Drugstore was small but had a little bit of everything. Old people said that when you mentioned Binder’s to them—that it had a little bit of everything. Clara didn’t know about that, but she knew they had the shoelaces she wanted. The rack was shoved into the back corner of the store, crowded on either side by junk nobody wanted to buy. Her elbow bumped against a box holding fuzzy rabbit socks and plastic eggs, marked down on clearance. Clara nudged the box to give herself more room. She forced the wobbly metal rack to turn. She was searching for the sparkly blue laces Macy had worn to school on Friday. Even though there was only one week left of seventh grade, Macy was still wearing new things to school. The metal squeaked as she turned the rack. She spied the ones she was looking for and slid the package off the hook. Clara glanced around again. She ran her thumb up and down the small, glossy plastic package in her hand. It fit snugly in her palm. She went back to slowly spinning the rack, pretending to look at all the different laces, but all she could think about were the blue ones tucked in her hand. The door made its bing-bong sound as Clara left the store. In her pocket were the blue shoelaces.

An #agentguide to THE SAVAGES HAVE ENTERED THE POOL
Contemporary Realistic #MG | 44K Words | querying agents

📍Smart Humor
📍Authentic MG Internal Conflict
📍Social Media FOMO Garbage
📍Finding Your People

#amquerying #agentsguide #middlegrade #booksky #mglit #kidlit

Thank you❤️

Who was the agent?

Hand holding a library book. The cover has a background of trees in greens and oranges. There is a white paper cutout dog in the middle, walking in silhouette to the right. There is a round silver sticker that says “National Book Award Finalist.” The title is “Gather” and the author is “Kenneth M Cadow.”

Worth reading for an authentic-feeling portrayal of growing up poor.

TITLE: Gather
AUTHOR: Kenneth M. Cadow
AGENT: @gingerninja.bsky.social @curtisbrownltd.bsky.social
PUB: Katie Cunningham @candlewickpress.bsky.social 2023

#kidlit #mglit #booksky #writersky #middlegrade #bookrec

Well, good luck. I'm rooting for you.

That's so cool you did the single day span. That definitely caught my eye in BUSTED. Made me want to play around with it in a future manuscript.

Same! Just discovered this too and it’s the perfect comp for smart, humorous dialogue. How are you comping it?

Hand holding a library book. The primarily yellow cover has an illustration of a green lizard wearing blue shorts and a purple t-shirt. He has a red sash across his body that says “hall monitor.” He’s holding a composition book with the name Zeke on it. The cover says “Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody from award-winning, best-selling author Patrick Ness, Illustrated by Tim Miller.”

Worth reading for hilarious characters with emotional depth.

TITLE: Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody
AUTHOR: @patricknessbooks.bsky.social
AGENT: @michellekassagency.bsky.social
PUB: @walkerbooksuk.bsky.social 2024, Illustrations Tim Miller

#kidlit #mglit #booksky #writersky #middlegrade #bookrec

Benny on the Case!

Who is Mrs. Arenspeck? Is she really 80?

Wow! Nicely done.

There was just something satisfying about lining them all up on your shelf.

Not my usual genre, but yeah, I want to know where they went.

🤮 That's an actual photo of Gemini recommending books.

Hand holding a library book. The cover is primarily yellow, with a girl and a boy facing each other. The girl is wearing a pink t-shirt and she is blowing a dandelion toward the boy in a blue sweatshirt. The boy is putting his hands up to block the dandelion seeds. The cover says “The Wish Switch by Lynn Painter.” It also says “He stole her wishes. She wants them back.”

Worth reading for squeee-filled lightness and a clever story.

TITLE: The Wish Switch
AUTHOR: Lynn Painter
AGENT: @jmcgowanbks.bsky.social @bookendsliterary.bsky.social
PUB: @littlebrownyr.bsky.social 2025

#kidlit #mglit #booksky #writersky #middlegrade #bookrec #lynnpainter

Nicely done!

See my profile for MG recs.

Kind of hard to beat.