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In the News |
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Valerie Hussey Departs Kids Can |
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Kids Can Press, a major Canadian publisher of children’s books, is undergoing a changing of the guard, with longtime president and publisher Valerie Hussey stepping down after 27 years. Hussey, who saw the house grow from sales of C$17,000 to (at its high point) C$14 million, said the decision was mostly personal, noting that she’s “at a point in my life where I’m ready to take on a new challenge.”
Succeeding Hussey in the publisher position is Karen Boersma, who joined KCP in 1998 as rights director. Boersma, who has been v-p and associate publisher at the house for the last three years, has also worked for Groundwood Books, University of Toronto Press and Doubleday. Lisa Lyons has also been brought in as interim general manager. Lyons, currently on staff at KCP’s parent company Corus—which bought the house in 2000—will retain her title of v-p and general manager of content distribution for the company’s television division while taking on additional responsibilities for overseeing KCP.
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More News |
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Flying Pig to Close on Saturday and Fly the Coop |
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Not only can pigs fly, but when 10-year-old children’s bookstore The Flying Pig in Charlotte, Vt., takes wing and reopens in nearby Shelburne on September 8, it will do so as a general interest bookstore.
Co-owners Elizabeth Bluemle and Josie Leavitt may be looking forward to the new location in the 200-year-old renovated Shelburne Inn, because of its proximity to popular tourist spots like the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, the Shelburne Museum and Shelburne Farms, but another draw is space. With 1460 sq. ft., the new store will be nearly double the current one. “It will be great to have space,” says Bluemle, who plans to add more children’s and adult titles. “We have such a great kids’ selection. We’re keeping what we’ve got and we’ll have enough room for more middle-grade books.” While adult books currently account for one third of sales, they now comprise only 20% of the inventory. In the new space, the split will be closer
to 60/40.
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Asking Around |
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Wedding and Funerals and Everywhere in Between |
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There are a few occupational hazards to working in children’s book publishing. You can pretty much count on being told, “Oh, that sounds fun!” whenever you are asked what you do. But far worse is the determined glint that comes into people’s eyes as they say, “I have the greatest idea for a children’s book!” or, “I’ve written a children’s book—would you read it?” We asked editors about the strangest place they’ve been pitched a book, and have collected a number of their stories.
Wes Adams, executive editor
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers
During the cesarean section birth of my daughter 12 years ago, I sat perched on a stool, gloved and gowned, next to a chatty anesthesiologist. As the operation got underway she asked about my job. Once she heard, she didn’t hesitate to pitch a picture-book idea at me. I still remember that it involved some multimedia musical tie-in and that it went on for a while. It was midnight and we had been in the hospital for 12 hours already, and I was too frazzled and freaked out to have the sense to shut her down.
Laura Godwin, v-p and publisher
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
I was at the opening of the Eric Carle Museum, standing in the rain with a few thousand other close friends, when I happened to mention the obscure little motel I was staying at, to a colleague who was standing next to me. When I got back to my motel a couple hours later, there was a manuscript waiting for me on my bedside table (not from the colleague, of course). Creepy!
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Book News |
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The Kids Who Did Holmes's Dirty Work |
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The 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet is a landmark in detective fiction—it was, after all, the world's introduction to Sherlock Holmes, the greatest of all detectives, and his faithful friend and chronicler John Watson.
Scarlet also contains another debut, one that gets less attention than the residents of 221B Baker Street themselves—it is where we first meet young Wiggins and the Baker Street Irregulars, "half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped eyes on," Watson wrote. Although they are mentioned just a handful of times throughout the "canon," the Irregulars were a crucial part of Holmes' deductive strategy. They were his eyes and ears in the underworld, going places where only dirty, unwashed street urchins could go.
Next month, Sherlock Holmes buff Michael Citrin and Scholastic editor Tracy Mack, a husband-and-wife team, will see the publication of their Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars (Orchard Books), the first in a series that shines light on the kids that, at least some of the time, did the great detective's dirty work.
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In Brief |
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All Things Endymion |
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Random House Children's Books has created a Web site devoted to Endymion Spring, a buzz-generating fantasy novel that is being released this month by Delacorte. The Web site features an extensive Q&A with the author, Matthew Skelton, in which the London native talks about writing his book while living in a strange city (Berlin), not speaking the language and not being able to find a job; notes from when he was writing the manuscript; a tour schedule; as well as games and puzzles, among other things. The author will head out on September 12 for a 13-city tour, starting at Anderson's Bookshop in the Chicago area and ending on October 4 at Joseph-Beth Booksellers
in Pittsburgh. |
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A Grimm Contest |
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Abrams Books for Young Readers has announced the winner of the Sisters Grimm Scribe-a-Story contest. For the contest, which ran this summer, readers 14 and under were asked to write an original fairy tale based on a story they love, or to come up with a new idea entirely. Nearly 1,000 entries were received, and 12-year-old Donald Scherschligt of Carmichael, Calif., won the grand prize. Scherschligt won a $1,000 savings bond, a trip to New York City, which includes his being the guest of honor at the Holiday Fairy Tale Decoration Opening Gala at Lyndhurst Castle in Tarrytown, N.Y., and two tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. He also gets to help Sisters Grimm author Michael Buckley name a character who will appear in the sixth book in
the series, due out in spring 2008. |
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A DVD, on Bookstore Shelves |
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Henry Selick, director of such animated feature films as James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas, has written his first children's book, which is based on an award-winning short animated film. Moongirl, a picture book starring a boy who travels to the moon on a nighttime adventure, will be released next month by Candlewick in a book and DVD set. This marks the first time a short film has been distributed through the book industry.
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Spooky Lunchtime |
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Harcourt is serving up treats for head buyers to promote Adam Rex's September picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. Such treats as candy eyeballs and fangs are packaged in a tin lunchbox featuring artwork from Rex's book. A few dozen of the lunchboxes were distributed at BEA, and they are being given as door prizes at Rex's fall events in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. Also, the B&N store in Rockefeller Center has requested a few of the lunchboxes, for a Halloween window display that will feature posters from the book along with the lunchboxes.
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Q&A |
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Bookshelf talks with Barbara McClintock about her new picture book, Adèle & Simon (FSG/Foster, Sept.)
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On their way home from school, the title characters of Adèle & Simon explore 1907 Paris (charted on an antique map in the endpapers). Simon loses things along the way. Did your idea originate with the history, the map, the puzzle, or all of the above?
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There are areas of Paris I love, and I wanted to use specific locations for a hide-and-seek, Where's Waldo? sort of story. Waldo was just a guy who lost things, so he'd go through all these modern, contemporary European settings. I wanted to do it in the historic realm.
read more
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People |
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Random House Children's Books has announced the promotion of Judith Haut to vice-president of communications. She was previously vice-president, executive director of publicity.
Also at Random House Children's Books, Natalia Dextre has been hired as production associate. She was formerly with HarperCollins Children's Books.
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In the Winners' Circle |
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Kate DiCamillo has won the 2006 Chicago Tribune Prize for Young Adult Fiction, for her novel The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Candlewick). DiCamillo will receive the award on October 28 at the Chicago Humanities Festival. She is the author of the Newbery Award-winning book The Tale of Despereaux and the Newbery Honor book Because of Winn Dixie.
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Featured Reviews |
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 Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant:
And Other Poems |
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 Jack Prelutsky, illus. by Carin Berger. HarperCollins/
Greenwillow, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 0-06-054317-5
Berger's (Not So True Stories & Unreasonable Rhymes) inventive, textured collages add up to a visual treat in this first-rate collection of Prelutsky poems. Readers will behold not only the bold umbrellaphant, whose trunk is literally an umbrella, but also more than a dozen other amusing creatures who (similar to the hybrid mythical beasts of Prelutsky's Scranimals) are a cross between an actual animal and an inanimate object, and exhibit combined traits of both. "The Solitary Spatuloon," its body shaped like a black spatula with wings, cries "Syrup!" plaintively, flipping pancakes with its tail. ("Its tail, we note, is well designed/ With this peculiar task in mind.") Especially clever are "The Tearful Zipperpotamuses," whose bodies are zippers that keep unzipping, "So
they worry and they fret/ That their insides will fall outside,/ Though this hasn't happened yet." The clever rhymes do not miss a beat, and Berger's collages brim with both unusual visual humor and irony. She pictures the Clocktopus ("Its tentacles in tempo/ With the clock upon its face") with as many clocks, pocket watches and wristwatches as it has appendages, none of them synchronized; and "The Ballpoint Penguins" swoop like ice skaters on lined pages used for cursive writing exercises—the critters "do little else but write and write./ Although they've nothing much to say,/ They write and write it anyway." Young readers will behold a wonderful, fantastically silly book. Ages 4-up. (Oct.)
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 Patricia McCormick. Hyperion, $15.99 (288p) ISBN 0-7868-5171-6
This hard-hitting novel told in spare free verse poems exposes the plight of a 13-year-old Nepali girl sold into sexual slavery. Through Lakshmi's innocent first-person narrative, McCormick (Cut) reveals her gradual awakening to the harshness of the world around her. Even in their poverty-stricken rural home, Lakshmi finds pleasure in the beauty of the Himalayan mountains, the sight of Krishna, her betrothed, and the cucumbers she lovingly tends, then sells at market. After a monsoon wipes out their crops, her profligate stepfather sells Lakshmi to an "auntie" bound for the city. During her journey, the girl acquires a visual and verbal vocabulary of things she has never seen before: electric lights, a TV. Soon a hard-won sense of irony invades her narrative, too. Early on, a poem
entitled "Everything I Need to Know" marks her step into womanhood (after her first menstrual cycle); later, "Everything I Need to Know Now" lists her rules as an initiated prostitute. In her village, Lakshmi had rebelliously purchased her first Coca-Cola for her mother, after her stepfather sold her; later, in Calcutta, she overhears two johns talking and realizes, "the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola at Bajai Sita's store./ That is what he paid for [a turn with] me." The author beautifully balances the harshness of brothel life with the poignant relationships among its residents; especially well-drawn characters include the son of one of the prostitutes, who teaches Lakshmi to read and speak some English and Hindi, and clever Monica, who earns her freedom but gets sent back by her
shamed family. Readers will admire Lakshmi's grit and intelligence, and be grateful for a ray of hope for this memorable heroine at book's end. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)
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see all of this week's reviews
including our web exclusive Annex *
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Points of Sale |
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Tips from children's booksellers |
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Just For Dad
When A Likely Story in Alexandria, Va., received its second Pannell Award in May, the committee noted that for a store with a staff of seven (and one dog), it manages to mount an extraordinary number of events each week, from bilingual story times to cooking and knitting camps. "Their energy and enthusiasm are amazing," said one juror. "I am impressed by how much they have created that is mostly done with an expenditure of time and hard work."
But A Likely Story doesn't just add events to its schedule. The staff watches customers and tries to anticipate their needs, which is how they settled on a new activity for guys. "On Saturday mornings," says owner Dinah Paul, "we noticed a lot of dads were coming in. They'd walk around the store, but they wouldn't sit down." To keep restless fathers—and their young charges—engaged, Paul set up a Just Me and My Dad story time earlier this year. And she's pleased to see the number of dads attending continuing to grow.
On the last Saturday of each month, fathers are invited to bring their kids, generally between the ages of two and four, for a story time with a more hands-on format. "We'll read a story on puzzles and then work on puzzles. We've also done ones on puppets and colors," says Paul. Although moms are invited, too, Paul has found that many mothers who come regularly during the week—A Likely Story runs six story times a week—prefer to sleep in on Saturdays.
But that's not the store's only new story time. This fall Paul is testing one for exceptionally restless little ones: Wiggle Story Time. —Judith Rosen
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Rights Report |
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Black
Justin Chanda at Atheneum Books for Young Readers has acquired the picture book Duck Butt, written by comedian and actor Michael Ian Black. Black is probably best known for his MTV sketch comedy show The State, the Comedy Central series Stella, and for his job as a commentator on VH1. The book will be published in 2008; an illustrator has not yet been named. |
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The Disney Channel has optioned Avalon High by Meg Cabot (Harper Collins) for dramatic rights for the production company Jaffe/
Braunstein Films Ltd.
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Bestsellers |
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Series and Tie-ins Bestsellers
August 2006 |
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- Captain Underpants.
Dav Pilkey.
Scholastic/Blue Sky
- Harry Potter.
J.K. Rowling.
Scholastic/Levine
- Clique.
Lisi Harrison.
Little, Brown
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
Disney
- Magic Tree House
Mary Pope Osborne, illus. by Sal Murdocca.
Random House
see full list
see more bestseller lists
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Behind the Bestsellers
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Lisi Harrison dreams up the titles for all of the books in her Clique series, which centers on a group of seventh-grade A-listers. The names are all plays on well-known sayings or titles, such as this month's entry, Dial L for Loser, and last fall's Invasion of the Boy Snatchers. Inspiration strikes in various ways, Harrison says. Not long ago, she was playing the Sesame Street song "It's Not Easy Being Green" for her infant son, Luke, and "something just clicked." Due out next March: It's Not Easy Being Mean. Volume eight, Sealed with a Diss, will follow next August. The first printing of Dial L for Loser was 250,000, and Little, Brown has gone back to press for another 75,000; there are three million Clique titles in
print.
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In the Media |
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The New York Times wrote about the upcoming, embargoed release of the officially sanctioned Peter Pan sequel, Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan in Scarlet (S&S/
McElderry). read more |
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In response to the Times piece about Peter Pan in Scarlet, The Independent covered the issue of that newspaper revealing major plot points about the book, which is embargoed for another six weeks. read more |
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From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Whether they are looking for upbeat stories or searching for the next Harry Potter, more and more adults are reading children's books. read more |
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The New York Times talked with author Gary Paulsen at his ranch in New Mexico, about living far from society, adventuring, and why he now writes books only for children. read more
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Mark Your Calendar |
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Sunnyside, Washington Irving's house in Tarrytown, N.Y., will host a Children's Book Day on Sunday, September 10. More than 60 children's book authors and illustrators will attend, including Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenburg, Nick Bruel, Gail Carson Levine and Will Moses. Attendees will be able to hear readings, see demonstrations and get books signed. For more information, click here.
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