When you're like AWWW DON'T WORRY, IT'S NOT THAT LONG YOU'LL BARELY NOTICE! to a kid and the book is 500 pages they look at you like you're speaking Pig Latin

I'm not criticizing long books, btw, I know there's always teens who want to totally immerse themselves and savor every page, I know sometimes the story MUST be long. I'm just 100% telling you they intimidate A LOT of teens and there should be MORE shorter books on the market.

And I need to be clear when *I* say short books I mean 200 pages or less. 🤷‍♀️ My fucking kingdom for a 150 page YA books. No joke when I held the first book in this series last year (144 pages!) I almost cried with relief/wonder.

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON MG lolol (but please check out the comments on this tweet lol) but if you think most 16 year olds are intimidated by a 500 page book wait until I tell you how most 12 year olds feel about them!!! HINT:

Also, and most importantly, as a librarian serving youth and teens you need to know one other thing: I understand market forces and I understand adult readers are part of the cash rationale but I DO NOT GIVE A SINGLE SHIT ABOUT ADULT READERS lol because this isn't for them.

THE UNAVOIDABLE TRUTH! Y'all get not all kids get to buy these books, right? So the "savor it over two months" or whatever uh ... and unfortunately, not even all libraries are fine free. I've EXTRA seen this in my school library setting.

Also JSYK these don't *have* to all be high/lo. A perfect example: THE FIRST PART LAST is a literary novel. (So literary it won awards for outstanding merit, all deserved!) It is 144 pages. I got DOZENS & DOZENS of teens to read it over the years. They were NEVER intimidated.

okay and also JSYK (if you didn't) it's VERY often easier to get shorter books into curriculum (time is premium for everyone, teachers included) or added as "additional/supplemental" titles in ELA classes so there's that.

@misskubelik I've been saying that for so long. We need a mix of lengths but everyone is wanting these tomes and with rising print costs...it also means rising retail costs

@_smromero Yes!! And this thread is out of control but lol it's like NO ONE IS TOTALLY AGAINST 600 PAGE BOOKS!! EVEN IN MG! there's always gonna be readers (of the correct audience age) who devour them! But...why are they, like, THEEE default now? It's really disheartening to a lot of kids.

@misskubelik My son got so annoyed at the lengths of middle grade fantasy he wrote his own book. :) He queried it and got two personalized rejections - both stated they liked it but MG fantasy can’t be 20k and he could resubmit if he at least doubled the length. He did not.

@ted_random Telling him to make it longer when he wrote it to be shorter

@misskubelik absolutely different responses from my students when i point out the YA shelves (they take one look and peace out) vs. graphic novel bookshelves in my classroom library... for 9th & 11th graders in advanced/IB classes! they want short, digestible books.

@ceceliabedelia I literally have to lol when people are like WHY ARE COMIC BOOKS AND MANGA ALL KIDS THESE DAYS WANT TO READ yeah it's a real mystery all right!!!

@misskubelik I thought DEAR MARTIN would spawn a rash of novellas, but it hasn't happened. Interesting, given that the book was so popular and I think part of it was the length.

@srmilesauthor It absolutely was AND it was a huge factor in getting it into classrooms/getting it taught, which is another element people are ignoring.

@misskubelik I wonder if rising paper costs will herald in a new era of short books (I'm for it!)

@maggielehrman I mean this thread started because I was actually inside a bookstore for the first time in a long time and seeing all the physical copies I was like "this feels unsustainable" lol just like? Practically???

@misskubelik A problem of mine is that when my publisher lets me pick between a couple fonts, somehow my fav font always ends up making the page count so much higher! 😭 Arrow clocked in at something around 76k words and became 400 pages. Astonishing was around 100k and became 480 pages 😔

@exrpan I'm a big advocate for 1. Stories should be as long as they need to be because, per Ranganathan's Laws of Library Science: every reader their book, every book their reader. 2. Design matters so DO WHAT FEELS RIGHT. I'm not AGAINST long books. It's just a lot for many teen readers