YA Memoir Hits the Big Time

By Claire Kirch, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 1/24/2008

A no-holds-barred memoir detailing the abuse and neglect Ashley Rhodes Courter experienced with many of the 14 families she lived with while growing up within Florida’s flawed foster care system has been taking off since the 22-year-old author’s interview with Diane Sawyer last week on Good Morning America.

Author Ashley Rhodes Courter (l.), during her interview 
with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America on January 15.
Photo: ABC Photo

According to Jaime Feldman, associate publicist at Simon & Schuster, which released the book under its Atheneum imprint on January 8, Three Little Words surged from #11,666 on Amazon.com’s sales rankings before Courter’s January 15 GMA appearance, to the top 150 by that afternoon, besides moving to the top spot on Amazon’s “Movers & Shakers” bestseller list. During that same 24-hour period, Three Little Words moved up from #16,487 on Barnes&Noble.com to #42. Three Little Words, which had a 50,000-copy first printing, has gone back to press twice in the past week, though the publisher declined to disclose the current in-print total.

“[Three Little Words] is striking a chord with readers,” Feldman says. “Ashley’s story is one that can be understood and valued by a child or teen reader, as well as adult readers,” she adds, pointing out that parents can empathize with Courter’s adoptive parents, who adopted her when she was 12 years old. 

Though Three Little Words has not maintained the same high rankings at online bookstores it held a week ago, sales are still strong. As of Jan. 23, a week after the GMA interview, Three Little Words ranked at #1,651 on Amazon, and #12 in books about teens and social issues, while bn.com ranked the book as #991.

Besides the GMA interview and an interview on CNN’s Nancy Grace show, Three Little Words has received extensive national and regional media coverage this month, including mentions in Glamour and Parade, as well as a feature story in the San Francisco Chronicle. After a live in-studio interview on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show on Jan. 16, Courter also conducted a radio satellite tour.

While a half-dozen booksellers contacted by Children’s Bookshelf reported they’d only just received copies of Three Little Words, wholesalers report a steady increase in orders since Courter’s GMA appearance. Heather Doss, children’s book buyer at Bookazine, said, “It had a quiet start at first, but it’s really picked up in the last two weeks. Sales have more than doubled. I think teens are starting to find out about it. YA memoir is a tough genre—usually it’s celebrities, not gritty like adult memoirs. It’s a tough area to break into, but this is a fabulous story that a lot of children can relate to.”