#18 3 Ways to Find Your Middle-Grade Novel’s Theme

In today’s episode on Middle Grade Made Easy(er), we’re taking a deep dive into how you can uncover the theme of your middle-grade novel. Theme is a foundational element of novel writing, as is story type which I covered in the last two episodes: Use Story Type to Unlock Your Middle-Grade Novel and The #1 Reason Agents Reject Your Middle-Grade Novel. In those episodes, I looked at how you can use story type as a framework to guide you in writing the type of story that agents, publishers and kids are looking for while still giving you the creative freedom to write your unique story.

So, if you haven’t listened to those episodes, go back and listen to them too as all the foundational elements of novel writing need to be clear in your head before you ever put pen to paper. If you’re listening to today’s episode before November 29, 2025, I’ll be hosting a workshop on story type that will help you choose one for your middle-grade novel. You can find out more about that workshop at loupiccolo.com/storytype. If you’re listening after that date, you can purchase the recording at the same link.

Now, let’s look at today’s topic of theme.

When I say the word ‘theme’, it may bring back memories of drifting off to sleep in English class, on a hot afternoon, to the drone of your teacher’s voice analyzing a novel you were not interested in. But I want to reassure you that I’m not going to do that today!

Instead, we’re going to look at theme in a way that will help you write a strong first draft for your middle-grade novel and connect deeply to the kids reading your book. In fact, once you’ve listened to this episode, I hope you’re going to send me an email telling me that you’re in love with theme because it has made your story easier to write…

In today’s podcast episode, we will cover:

• theme and what it is
• how knowing your story’s theme can make writing your novel easier
• three questions that will help you find your middle-grade novel’s theme

What is theme in middle-grade novels?

When you think about all the exciting, moving or thrilling events that will take place in your novel, you’re thinking about the plot. So, if plot is what happens in your novel, then theme is why what happens in your novel matters.

That’s all there is to it. See! That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Here’s an example to show you what I mean: let’s say you’re writing a middle-grade novel about a brave, young warrior who defends a village from a marauding troll, eventually succeeds and restores order to the villagers’ world. That sequence of events would be your plot, and it might be filled with clashing swords, quests to find an enchanted chalice containing a potion that will help conquer the troll, life and death stakes, and a good dose of description about made-up worlds and magic.

But here’s the thing: while all of that sounds exciting, when the troll finally lays down arms and admits defeat, the kids reading your book are going to riffle back and forth between the last few pages and wonder, “Is that it?”

Why?

Because there’s no underlying, deeper meaning to that story that they can point to when someone asks them why the warrior went to all that trouble in the first place.

Ideally, if this book had an underlying theme to the plot, kids would not only find out if the troll is vanquished and if order is restored to the village, but they would also embark on a journey in which they can fall in love with characters they care about and feel emotions they can relate to.

As humans, we’re always looking for meaning in everything that happens to us, aren’t we? Understanding the reasons for our behaviour and reactions helps us to process events in our lives, and also helps us grow emotionally. The satisfying feeling of accomplishment that comes with making sense of life is also what readers are looking for when they pick up a book. Quite simply, books help us make sense of the world we live in through story, but they can only do that if the books we read have an underlying meaning to them, which is what theme is all about.

How can theme help you write a solid first draft?

If you know the theme of your novel before you begin writing, you can weave the right types of events into your story that will cause your characters to grow in a way which will help you express your theme.

Then, when it’s time to revise your first draft, you’ll have a clear idea of which scenes, characters and plot events need to stay in the novel, which should be revised, and which would be best deleted because they don’t serve the message you want to convey to readers.

So, you’ll have a stronger, more cohesive first draft if you know the questions you’re exploring about the human condition in your story before you ever put pen to paper.

How to find your novel’s theme

While all of this makes sense, you’re probably wondering, how you can figure out the theme of your middle-grade novel, right?

Here are three practical questions you can ask yourself to uncover your novel’s theme:

1. What comment do you want to make on life and the world?
2. How does your main character change and grow from the beginning to the end of your book?
3. What is your novel’s story type?

Let’s take a deeper look at each of these questions…

• What comment do you want to make on life and the world?

When you think about the book you want to write (or have already written), what do you want to say? How do you feel about what you want to say? What’s the point that you’re trying to make and what takeaway do you want kids to have once they’ve finished reading your book? You might be making a case for or against something or simply exploring the human condition from a specific angle.

Here are some examples of middle-grade books and (one of) their themes to inspire you if you’re still not sure of what theme is:

1. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling = good vs evil
2. Odder by Katherine Applegate = the role of human-animal relationships in conservation
3. A Wolf called Wander by Rosanne Parry = identity within the context of family
4. Love that Dog by Sharon Creech = the purpose of poetry

You may have noticed that I mentioned ‘one of’ the themes when listing each of those books, and that’s because most novels have more than one theme. But I don’t want you to worry about that right now as themes tend to develop naturally or even change when we’re writing a novel. But if you can figure out one main theme before you begin drafting to help lay down the foundations of your story, you will see others unfold as you write.

• How does your main character change and grow?

Earlier on, I said that plot is what happens, and theme is why what happens matters. This means that when we talk about theme, we’re not talking about the events that happen in your plot, right? When we talk about theme, what we’re actually talking about is how the events of the plot make your main character grow and change, and what they learn (or fail to learn) along the way.

I’m going to say that again, but in a different way, because I want you to really think about what I’ve just said. Theme is expressed through how the plot events in your middle-grade novel change your main character, and how that change makes them grow, whether it be positively or negatively.

Now, you might be thinking, “If only my English teacher had told me that, I might have actually had fun studying literature!”

I can relate! Because recognizing that the plot events and how they affect characters only exist to illustrate the theme in a book makes it a lot easier to understand theme, and to weave it into your own middle-grade novel.

So, to figure out your novel’s theme, you can ask yourself who your protagonist is at the beginning of the story and who they have become at the end. Once you’ve identified how your protagonist has changed, you’ll see that the change links naturally to an underlying message that offers insight into the human condition. And everyone–even young kids, like middle-grade readers–can relate to that insight because these messages are universal, and are part of the human experience. 

For example, in Love that Dog by Sharon Creech, one of the themes in the novel is the purpose of poetry, which sounds rather vague and complex, doesn’t it? But look at how it plays out:

Jack doesn’t want to write poetry in the beginning, and he doesn’t understand or enjoy it. But, as he doesn’t have much choice, he participates in a stubbornly guarded way, and only allows his teacher to publish his poems anonymously so that he isn’t embarrassed when his classmates read his work. But once he sees that the others actually like his poems, he slowly becomes more confident and agrees to send a poem to a published poet. By the end of the book, Jack has learned that poetry invites readers to pay closer attention to the world and to people’s experience within it, as well as provide a creative outlet to express and process past experiences. If you’ve read the book, you know what experience Jack hasn’t processed yet, but badly needs to, and poetry helps him do that.

Kids reading Love that Dog may not be able to put the underlying theme of the book into words but, by the end of the book, they will have understood and recognized, deep in their core, that using poetic techniques like metaphors and similes can help them talk about hard things they wouldn’t know how to express otherwise.

• What is your novel’s story type?

If you’ve listened to the episodes in this podcast show on story type that I mentioned at the beginning of today’s episode, you’ll know that each story type explores its own universal theme. Once you’ve identified the story type in your middle-grade novel, it will help clarify a specific theme, and the questions you could explore in your book.

For example: action stories explore themes like good vs evil, morality stories explore themes like right vs wrong, worldview stories explore themes like change leads to maturity. If you haven’t already done so, go back and listen to those two episodes, and sign up to the workshop to dive deeper into story type and how it can help you uncover your story’s theme.

Three quick tips about theme

1. In kidlit, a lot of writers make the mistake of preaching to the kids they’re writing for. The difference between developing theme in your novel and preaching is in the discovery. Although theme means there is an underlying message or lesson present in the story, it should never be stated outright. Preaching involves you telling kids what to think and expecting them to blindly believe what you say instead of allowing kids to discover the lesson or concept for themselves through the character growth in your novel. When you allow kids the freedom to uncover meaning from the books they read, this empowers them and that’s one of the greatest gifts you can give a child as an author.
2. Themes are universal, so don’t worry if you discover that your theme sounds cliched or way too common. Over your lifetime, you have read many books that share the same themes but, because the authors of each of those books have created their own fresh and unique plot events that affect their protagonists, you’ve been constantly entertained even though you’re receiving the same underlying message again and again.
3. Leave lots of room in your plot to explore your novel’s theme because your theme shouldn’t only affect your main character. Different angles of that same theme can affect all your characters. For example: in Odder by Katherine Applegate, the theme highlighting the role of human-animal relationships isn’t explored only from Odder’s perspective. We also see it from a human perspective, as well as through the experiences of Odder’s friend Kairi and the perspectives of other otters in the aquarium who are all at different points in their journey of growth and enlightenment along the path of the same theme.

To sum up…

That’s it for today’s podcast episode on theme but, before I leave you, I want to tell you that I’ve created a free PDF handout for you summarizing all this information so you can print it out and keep it for future reference, and you can access it at loupiccolo.com/theme.

Now, let me quickly sum up what we’ve covered today:

• Plot is the word we use to describe what happens to our characters in a story while theme is the word we use to describe why what happens actually matters to the kids reading your book.
• Books help us make sense of the world we live in through story, but they can only do that if the books we read have an underlying meaning to them, which is what theme is all about.
• Knowing the theme of your novel before you begin writing will help you weave the right types of events into your plot, which will affect your main character’s growth and reflect your theme.
• You can find your novel’s theme by thinking about what you want to say about life and the world, how your characters grow and change, and by identifying your novel’s story type.

Links

• Free PDF handout on theme
• Workshop: loupiccolo.com/storytype
• Middle Grade Made Easy(er) podcast
• The Kidlitter Letter Newsletter