This study related the style of writing found in literature for children and the relative level of readability of this material. Cloze tests of readability on 10 passages from five juvenile biographies of Lincoln were given in 1 week to a hemogeneously grouped upper elementary school reading class (n=28) in suburban Detroit. The mean T-unit length, the proportion of content carrying words, and the number of kernel sentences in the deep structure of each T-unit were calculated as measures of semantic lead and grammatical complexity for each passage and each book. The literary content of each passage was also determined by the proportion and length of language strings. The conclusions are that (1) the degree of reading difficulty is a function of both the semantic load and the grammatical complexity of the material; (2) the ease with which a reader can identify and use the syntactic context of a passage directly influences the extent of his understanding of the material; (3) there is a great variation in consistency of complexity of style among authors writing for the same audience and within the same book; and (4) the literary content of a passage may significantly influence the ease with which a reader interacts with it. (Author/DD)