Ridiculous Word Counts

I was recently discussing middle grade books (approx. ages 10-13+) with some literary agents, and discovered to my astonishment that many of them won’t accept a book if it’s over 60,000 words because they consider it unsellable. 

How short! I thought.  Personally, I feel cheated when a book is that short.  But more than that, I was confused.  In my experience, children will happily read a book that is absolutely massive – the longer the better, sometimes, for bragging rights.  Children will devour books.  They’re not like adults, who never seem to have time for that sort of thing (and other silliness).  What has gone so wrong with the publishing industry that they think this?  Moreover, what are they basing it on?  It can’t possibly be experience, because that makes no sense. 

When I think of internationally bestselling fantasy for middle grade readers—books by either first time authors or previously not widely recognized authors—I think:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling: 77,000 words.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy: 67,000 words
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud: 122,000 words
Percy Jackson: the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan: 87,000 words
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: 95,000 words*

 /*I know it was written decades ago, but it’s still on Amazon’s top 10 bestselling children’s fantasy books/

At the moment, under Amazon’s “Children’s Fantasy and Magic Books” the top ten bestselling books (that I could find the word counts to – so not the Frozen movie tie-in books) have the following word counts:

101,182
101,564
95,022
129,312
43,617
129,725
89,124
132,818
83,432
90,942

 I’d categorize a couple of these as young adult, but most were middle-grade (including some of the longest ones), and the 43,617 I’d call juvenile.

 So . . . why again do agents not want middle-grade fantasies above 60,000 words?