middle school children's lit

Last semester I took a Junior Seminar (required) in English and it was a Children's Lit class. It was fun and I got to read 11 good books or mostly good.

I was really impressed by some of the newer ones. They felt so fresh and real compared to some of the science fiction and fantasy works I've read that is directed at adults. They are strongly character driven and the plot problems are generally close to home - what might be thought of as simple problems but which are really big problems in the perspective of a child. The level of detail in these books also made me happy. The characters were varied and unapologetically like people in real life. Some were larger than life but still believable too. There simply wasn't any caricature.

There were also no stand-in characters. Each person was given space to come alive in the story. Yes, I am speaking about award winning books and good writers and good writing.

I am tentatively in a fiction class at Berkeley (still on the waitlist tonight) and the teacher told us we will generate 45000 words for the class. I kind of took a mental step back. That is 4 ME size novellas and about 10 regular length short stories. The teacher doesn't care what we write in terms of short story or chapters but is interested we write long.

When I thought about 45,000 words I knew that was edging close to the size of a mid-grade children's lit book. Could I do that? Do I want to?

I have written novels before but none are intentionally for children.

My answer came in the powder room where all great thinking takes place (IMO) - I started getting story fragments which is generally a good sign that I have something getting ready to come out. I have a setting, a few characters and all I need is a simple problem, which I also think I have the beginnings of. As soon as I thought the thought, I got more stuff. So, once the professor gives me an ad code I think I'm going to write a children's novel. I may even start without an ad code. It's rather a nifty story idea. Small. Small story.

What's 45,000 words - a weekend?