Live from BEA: Big Fall Children's Books

by Diane Roback -- Publishers Weekly, 5/31/2008 9:43:00 AM

Two fall books from children’s divisions are likely to be two of the biggest-selling books of the year, period. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown/Tingley, Aug. 2) and Brisingr by Christopher Paolini (Knopf, Sept. 20), both eagerly anticipated by booksellers, each have first printings of 2.5 million copies. Hundreds of bookstores across the country are planning midnight parties for the titles.

Many of the most buzzed-about titles are followups to previous hits. Swing! by Rufus Butler Seder (Workman, Oct., 450,000), follows last year’s blockbuster Gallop! Jean Feiwel at Feiwel & Friends reported an “enormous response” for Nancy Tillman and Eric Metaxas’s It’s Time to Sleep, My Love (Sept, 500,000), companion to On the Night You Were Born; If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond (HarperCollins/Geringer, Oct., 1 million); Bats at the Library by Brian Lies (Houghton, July, 100,000), following up Bats at the Beach; The Scrambled States of America Talent Show by Laurie Keller (Holt/Ottaviano, Aug.); Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer (Disney-Hyperion, July, 750,000)—Antonia Squire from Kepler’s said, “I didn’t think it could get any better, but this one’s just brilliant”—and the second Octavian Nothing from M.T. Anderson (Candlewick, Oct., 50,000).

Several noteworthy series are reaching their end this season. Cornelia Funke wraps up her Inkheart trilogy with Inkdeath (Scholastic/Chicken House, Oct., 350,000 copies); The Diamond of Darkhold (Random, Sept.), concludes Jeanne DuPrau’s fantasy sequence a month before the City of Ember movie hits movie theaters; and The Runaway Dolls is last in the Doll People trilogy by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin, illustrated by Brian Selznick (Disney-Hyperion, Oct., 175,000).

Fall fiction garnered the lion’s share of the attention at the show. Scholastic threw a bash (complete with caviar and oysters) at the Millennium Biltmore to launch The 39 Clues; Rick Riordan penned the first volume and wrote the story arc for the multi-platform 10-volume series, which debuts in September. Another Scholastic novel, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, probably had the most advance buzz heading into the show; it pubs in October with 100,000 copies. At the children’s breakfast, Neil Gaiman created a lot of bookseller excitement for The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, Oct., 250,000); publicity director Sandee Roston said that galleys at the booth went “in 10 seconds.” Other fiction highlights: Science Fair by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (Disney-Hyperion, Oct., 250,000); Paper Towns from John Green (Dutton, Oct.); My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath (Random/Schwartz & Wade, Oct., 50,000); and Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (S&S, Oct., 100,000).

On the picture book front, Mem Fox traveled to BEA from Australia for Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury (Harcourt, Oct., 150,000). Several booksellers at the breakfast given in Fox’s honor, including Valerie Lewis at Hicklebee’s, said they “saw a classic in the making.” Big Words for Little People is the latest from the bestselling team of Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell (HarperCollins/Cotler, Sept., 500,000); and for Jan Brett’s Gingerbread Friends (Putnam, Sept., 350,000), a line began at 6:00 a.m. for tickets to her autographing. Two pop-ups of note: Peter Pan from Robert Sabuda (Little Simon, Oct., 200,000); and ABC3D by Marion Bataille (Roaring Brook/Porter, Oct., 100,000). Samples of ABC3D kept disappearing from the Roaring Book booth; as associate publisher Lauren Wohl said, “That’s a true litmus test of the book’s appeal.” Wohl added that Roaring Brook had created its first-ever display unit for ABC3D; by Saturday, nearly all 1000 units were spoken for.

Nonfiction made a strong showing, starting with David Macaulay’s long-awaited The Way We Work (Houghton, Oct., 300,000), supported by a 15-city tour and a $500,000 marketing campaign, including TV. Knucklehead is a memoir by National Ambassador Jon Scieszka of his childhood with five brothers (Viking, Oct., 35,000). Feiwel & Friends crashed Yes We Can, a biography of Barack Obama by Garen Thomas, onto its list; it pubs this week. S&S brings two bestselling adult franchises into the children’s arena: Paula Deen’s My First Cookbook (Oct., 300,000) and The 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey (Sept., 200,000). America: A Making of a Nation by Charlie Samuels is an interactive book with flaps and pullouts, including a full-size Declaration of Independence (Little, Brown, Sept., 150,000), and booksellers appreciated the “Declaration of Independents” LB created just for BEA; and an all-star anthology, Our White House: Looking In Looking Out (Candlewick, Sept., 100,000), which features an introduction by David McCullough.

Next spring marks the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, and many books are in the works, including three prominent titles this season: Abe’s Honest Words by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Disney-Hyperion); Lincoln Shot, illustrated by Christopher Bing (Feiwel & Friends); and Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship by Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Bryan Collier (Holt). (Giovanni also has an October title from Sourcebooks, Hip-Hop Speaks to Children, poetry plus an audio CD.)

And there’s always room for titles to break out at the show. For Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link (Viking, Oct.), booksellers lined up half an hour before her informal signing; as the publisher of Small Beer Press, Link has been building up a hipster following. Harcourt decided to tour Adam Rex for his Frankenstein Takes the Cake (Sept., 75,000), thanks to his reception at BEA. Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig has a novel for young readers, Ignatius MacFarland: Frequenaut! (Little, Brown, Sept.); “booksellers know he’s funny,” said LB’s Melanie Chang. Booksellers were also buzzing about a first novel for September, The Devil’s Breath by David Gilman (Delacorte, Sept.), and Butterflies in My Stomach and Other School Hazards, a humorous picture book of colloquialisms by Serge Block (Sterling, Aug.).

With reporting by Elizabeth Devereaux.

For our roundup of big BEA books for adults, click here.