The middle grade book I'm reading right now has characters worried about their parents fighting, worried about parents money, sad about losing friends, worried people could die, worried about being ostracized, worried about their parents being separated from them, scared for their own lives. All in all, it is fairly dark. I'm writing one now and I have some ideas about a kidnapping / blackmail / death threat plot (most of which was actually requested by my niece) but I'm not sure what the bounds of the genre are (and what will make people look at me sideways for writing). Any book suggestions for the darkest super popular middle grade?
I've only a passing acquaintance with the films, but Harry Potter's parents were murdered, he's abused by his step-parents, goes to a racist ubermensch school where he's bullied, steals credit for saving everyone when it's really the girl who comes up with all the ideas, becomes a slaveowner for a while, arranges for one of his professors to be raped by horses, sees friends and mentors killed off, and in the end is forced to marry a ginger, which I understand is a fairly horrible fate in the source culture. I'm sure there's more.
