I posted the query letter for Henry Rider: Clown Hunter to reddit for critique, and one thing in particular caught my attention: more than one person told me I need to classify it as middle grade fantasy rather than young adult. "there’s a certain line between it being silly and not, and this feels silly if that makes sense." "I agree with DR about the tone. It sounds way too childish for your YA target market, and writing for younger readers means you have a responsibility to find where your audience's funny bone lies and tickle that. This is the sort of humour I think people would enjoy at 12 rather than 16." "YA and MG are totally different markets. FWIW, this reads like MG to me and I think you'll have more success going full MG." This is the summary I posted: "Fifteen year old Henrietta “Henry” Rider is the Hunter, the only thing standing between the human race and total chaos. God help us all. Henry dreams of gaining her people’s respect by hunting down the corrupted maiams, who live only to kill and consume human laughter. Born into the klaon race’s lowest class, her powers weakened even further by a disability she doesn’t speak of, she has her work cut out for her. But then she meets Ethan, a young human whose recent trauma has rendered incapable of laughing. The power stored inside him could feed the entire klaon population for months, or create the most powerful maiam ever seen. Seeing this as her chance to prove herself, Henry volunteers to watch over Ethan until he learns to laugh again—no matter what. But a masked killer also has his sights set on Ethan, and he hides secrets that will turn Henry’s whole world upside down. With Ethan’s help, she’ll have to uncover a sinister plot that goes far deeper into her own culture than she could ever guess." What do you guys think? Middle grade or young adult?
