Does the age of the characters in a book affect whether or not kids and teens want to read the book?
I just finished The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander and it got me thinking about this question. In this book, Mac and his best friend, Vince, are running a business out of the washroom of their elementary school. They solve problems and do favours -- like getting test answers, R-rated movie tickets, forged hall passes, doctors' notes -- for a fee of cash and return favours. Business is going well and Mac is respected and popular, until a legendary bully, Staples, begins to take control of the school through extortion and violence. Mac sets out to bring down Staples but things get complicated when he realizes someone -- possibly his best friend --is informing his enemy of all his plans.
I definitely liked the premise of this book and the plot itself played out pretty well too. It's really a sort of parody on the GodFather and other mafia/mobster stories. (you might notice a resemblance between the cover of the book and the GodFather Movie poster... ) I found it a little strange that at many points the characters acted more mature than their age. Mac was hiring third and fourth graders to be "hit men" and he himself was only in grade six and talking like he was far older than that. (this was probably intentional and part of the whole parody thing) I wondered if high school would be a better setting for the book... and then wondered if teens would be willing to read this book regardless of the fact that the main characters were only in elementary school (it is also classed as children's fiction). The content and language are not childish and I do think Mac's covert mafia-like business would be interesting to teens. In general I think most kids/teens will read books with main characters that are older than them (in fact, some of them may prefer this), but what about the reverse?