Philip Reeve, talking complete sense, of course:
As a general rule, I think writers should try to avoid using terms which are ugly or unclear. ‘Middle Grade’ is both. ‘YA’ is ugly too, but at least it’s informative. Once you work out that it stands for ‘Young Adult’ you know that it’s referring to books best suited to older kids and teenagers. But if you explain to British people that MG stands for “Middle Grade’, they’re often none the wiser.
… …
If you say, “here is my new childrens book’, children, and adults who want to buy books for them, can look at it and quickly work out from cover and synopsis whether they think it’s something they want to read. If you say ‘here is my new middle grade book’, why would they bother? Because you’ve just told them that it’s slightly crap.
Read the whole piece via Philip Reeve.