[nakisa Posts: 15 Status: Offline Story, sky and cultures are my interests WWW]

Hi,

what is the standard word count for a middle grade picture book biography?

I am writing a picture book biography about a cosmologist and got advised to target it for middle grade. Can anybody, please, suggest me resources to learn more about MG biographies criteria? Still, in my mind, MG should be a novel not a picture book. Therefore, I seek more information on the topic.

Thanks,
Nakisa

[David Wright Posts: 1,012 Status: Offline Tell me that again.]

Have you looked at similar books?
Starstruck: The Cosmic Journey of Neil DeGrasse Tyson is 1800 words.
Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race is 2100 words.

FYI: I used https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/picture-books-for-middle-school to see some MG PBs and www.perma-bound.com to look at word counts.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 6,999 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

Nonfiction for middle grade readers is often heavily illustrated to help the reader understand the concepts. A picture is still worth lots of words, after all. Smithsonian books come to mind.

[nakisa Posts: 15 Status: Offline Story, sky and cultures are my interests WWW]

Thanks for the replies. really helped

[Vijaya Posts: 7,162 Status: Offline Encourage WWW]

Nakisa, see Ellen Jackson's The Mysterious Universe and Suzanne Slade's Countdown for more examples for things related to the cosmos. They're for MG. PB biographies can have a huge range depending on the subject. Good luck!