Authors of SLJ's DOD 2013 panel "Middle School Drama and Trauma." l. to r. Holly Sloan, Ayun Halliday, Gordon Korman, Linda Urban, and Josh Farrar.

From tragic turning points to budding first love, some of the most talented and up-and-coming authors for the middle grade audience shared their insights on the writing process, connection to their intended audience, and how humor plays a part in all of their works at SLJ’s annual Day of Dialog. Held at Columbia University’s Faculty House and moderated by Caroline Ward, head of youth servicesat Ferguson Library in Stanford, CT, the second panel of the day focused on themes of friendship, loss, identity, and overcoming great obstacles. Ward posed several questions that led to lively conversation among the panelists. The speakers noted that readers between the ages of 10 and 12 were special because they’re beginning to take charge of their own opinions and experiencing important emotions for the first time, something Josh Farrar noted was “gold to authors.” Farrar explores first crushes in his book A Song for Bijou (Bloomsbury, 2013), a tale about Alex, a boy who falls for Bijou, a girl who relocates to Brooklyn, NY, after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The prolific Gordon Korman incorporates humor in most of his titles, including Hypnotize Me (Scholastic, 2013), which features a main character who doesn’t know that he’s descended from the two most powerful hypnotist bloodlines on the planet. Middle schoolers see humor in their world and often use it to protect themselves, noted Korman. The other panelists agreed that because of the age level of the protagonists, there will always be some underlying humor in even an issue-filled book for tweens. While Farrar’s story is about a survivor of the tragic earthquake, humor and positive relationships lighten the tale’s mood and offer hope. Ward’s inquiry to the novelists about writing gender specific novels stirred up passionate reactions from the crowd. Linda Urban, author of The Center of Everything (Houghton Harcourt), whose main character turns 12 while coming to terms with her grief following the death of her grandmother, made a plea to the editors and publishers in the room to create gender neutral covers for middle grade titles. Urban argued that the cover art often will make the book interesting to either girls or boys, even though the story itself might have more universal appeal. Ayun Halliday, author of Peanut (Random), a graphic novel about a girl who fakes a peanut allergy in the hope that she will get sympathy and make friends in her new school, raved about her novel’s unique cover design, which features a single peanut against a blue background, and has no obvious intended audience. Holly Sloan, a former TV and film screenwriter, wrote Counting by Sevens about a 12-year-old girl genius whose world is forever changed when her parents die in a car crash, declared "There are no books for boys or girls. There are books for people".