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I don’t remember the first time I read Charlotte’s Web—or had it read aloud to me—but I do remember reading it aloud to my three sons.

My youngest son, Levi, was in first grade when it was his turn to experience this beloved classic as a bedtime story. I had just finished the first chapter and placed the book down on his bedside table when he asked, “When did they kill the pig?”

I looked at him, puzzled. The chapter had detailed how young Fern pulled an axe out of her father's hand, convinced him of the injustice of killing the runt of the litter, and ended with her seated on the kitchen floor, nursing the newly named Wilbur with a warm bottle of milk.

"Fern just saved the pig," I assured him.

But my seven-year-old shook his head, grabbed the book, and turned back to page three. He pointed to these words: "The kitchen table was set for breakfast, and the room smelled of coffee, bacon, damp plaster, and wood smoke from the stove."

He had caught something I'd missed — the bacon. After several reads of this children’s book, I was still learning from it. And being schooled by a first grader.

Levi starts high school next fall, and though I kept the bedtime story tradition alive as long as I could, these days I'm often the first one asleep. Still, I keep reading books written for children and adolescents — and I think all readers should do the same.

To skip any book not recommended for your age is to miss beauty and wisdom that transcends age entirely.

Katherine Rundell, author of the international bestseller, , recently published a tiny, but miraculous title: . In it, Rundell argues that children's fiction "is not exclusively written for children. When I write, I write for two people: myself, age twelve, and myself, now, and the book has to satisfy two distinct but connected appetites."

Rundell goes on: those who write for children are trying to arm them for the life ahead with everything true they can find — and, perhaps secretly, to arm adults against the compromises and heartbreaks that life involves. To remind them that there are, and always will be, great sustaining truths to which we can return.

I'll admit that as someone who has published a middle-grade novel, I have a little extra motivation to fill my shelves with books intended for a younger crowd. But when I read these books, it's not primarily an exercise in market research. It's a reminder that what makes children's literature so powerful is that it speaks to all of us. The best of it does not talk down to its audience — it cuts straight to the bone.

I stumble when people ask what age group my book, , is written for. Publishing taught me that age recommendations aren't an exact science, and my work as a teacher and literacy coach has only confirmed it — I've seen too many book battles fought in defense of arbitrary shelf labels. There is no simple formula for pairing a reader with a book.

When I was writing Enemies in the Orchard, I often thought of the 8th graders I taught in my classroom for more than a decade, but I also wrote it for English teachers like myself who might teach from the book. I wrote it for my family, who miss our old orchard that has since been bulldozed and gone — and I wrote it for myself: the adult trying to make sense of the world and the adolescent still buried deep inside me.

When my agent was pursuing publishers, she sent my manuscript to dozens of houses, describing it as a Young Adult novel. Some of the rejections were telling: it was "not edgy enough," "too serious and sad," and "historical fiction isn't selling well in the commercial market."

In August of 2022, when Zonderkidz reached out with interest in publishing the manuscript, they asked to do so under the middle-grade category, to which I consented. Several months later, when the advanced reader copies were sent out to reviewers, the marketing material on the back said it was written for 9-12-year-olds.

My dear undergraduate poetry teacher and mentor,, contacted me right away to let me know a mistake must have been made. “I noticed on the back of your book it says for children ages 9-12. I truly can’t imagine that. Even when I read it, I felt it was adult. Did they perhaps mean for grades 9-12?”

His concerns were mine too, and I'm grateful my editor and publisher were open to a conversation. I explained that I was losing sleep over the age guideline. I pointed out that one of my favorite middle-grade novels, by Gary Schmidt, carries a 12+ rating.

By saying so specifically who the book was for, I worried we were implying just as clearly who it wasn't for. And I wanted the book to be for whoever was holding it, whoever might need it at that moment.

My book’s marketing materials now read "ages 9 and up" — though I tell people it's for ages 9 to 99. I'm grateful my publisher was willing to have the conversation and remove the ceiling.

“The human heart is not a linear train ride,” Rundell says.

So I'll ask you, reader: what books are you missing out on because they sit in a different section of your library or bookstore? What books written for a child might the child in you need to discover? Or rediscover?

I'm in favor of removing any obstacle that might keep us from a good story. Especially something as arbitrary as our age.