Additionally, Boyds Mills will close its Asheville, N.C., office, from which Front Street had historically been based. The three employees in that office—director of institutional marketing Nancy Hogan, editor Joy Neaves and designer Helen Robinson—will not remain with the company on a full-time basis, according to Brown, who notes that the employees did not work exclusively on Front Street titles and that there is no “cause and effect” relationship between Roxburgh’s resignation and the closure of the office.  

Christopher Paolini, visiting the dragon's egg exhibit (a pivotal part of Random House's online promotional game for Brisingr) at the New York Public Library.

Paolini arrived in New York City earlier this week and will deliver his first public reading of Brisingr at a midnight launch party at the Barnes & Noble in NYC’s Union Square. Though the author acknowledges that he is “a little bit nervous,” he says he’s excited to meet fans, and he came armed with a few boxes of pens for signing books. “Our phones have not stopped ringing since we announced that Christopher would be joining us,” said a spokesperson for the store.

For 24-year-old Paolini, who was 15 when he started writing Eragon (the first book in what has come to be called the Inheritance Cycle), it has been an “incredible” journey. “When I was about half-way through [Brisingr], it was only then that I felt I could call myself a professional writer. I’ve been able to do interesting things, travel around the world. I’m very grateful to be given this opportunity to do what I love doing as a career.”  

Egmont U.K. and the Price Stern Sloan imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group have forged a deal with licensor Chorion to publish a range of books tied to The Mr. Men Show. The TV series premiered in February 2008 on Cartoon Network in the U.S. and Five’s Milkshake! block in the U.K. Penguin and Egmont are the English-language publishers of Roger Hargreaves’s classic Mr. Men and Little Miss books, which have sold 100 million copies worldwide since their publication in the 1970s. TV tie-in formats, which will launch in spring 2009, will include 8x8s,
readers and sticker story books, among others.
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RDR Books to Appeal 'Lexicon' Ruling 
Representatives for RDR Books plan to appeal last week’s ruling by Judge Robert Patterson in J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment’s lawsuit against the Michigan-based publisher, according to the Detroit Free Press. RDR publisher Roger Rapaport told the paper that he expects his legal team to file an appeal this week, in an effort to allow The Harry Potter Lexicon by Steven Vander Ark to be published.

The Free Press reports that RDR and Vander Ark are considering presenting a revised version of the Lexicon, in the hopes that the Judge Patterson might allow it to be published. “I’ve always been very much willing to work with [Rowling and Warner Bros.] and try to see what can be done,” Vander Ark told the paper.

David Macaulay. Photo: Steven Haller.

David Macaulay, explainer extraordinaire, has gone from one challenging extreme to another in his 35-year career as an artist/author—from building a Cathedral to Unbuilding the Empire State Building, from Underground to sailing ships, from Building Big, now to building small. In some parts of the project, microscopically small.

His new book, The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body (Houghton Mifflin, Oct.),
is a deconstruction of the most intricate of all mechanisms—us.                               read more

Yet this isn’t Marciano’s first encounter with Madeline. In Madeline in America and Other Holiday Stories (Scholastic/Levine, 1999), he provided artwork for a story Bemelmans originally wrote as a promotional publication for Neiman-Marcus. In 2001, Viking published Marciano’s Madeline Says Merci: The Always-Be-Polite Book, in which the chapeau-wearing girl emphasizes the importance of kindness. Marciano also wrote a biography of his maternal grand-père, Bemelmans: The Life and Art of Madeline’s Creator, a 1999 Viking release. It was that memoir that eventually inspired him to create a new Madeline story with gouache and watercolor art in Bemelmans’s signature style.   

In 2003, after working at Pooh's Corner for 37 years combined, Sally Bulthuis and Camille DeBoer purchased the store they had managed for so long. One of several general children's bookstores founded by Baker Publishing Group, Pooh's Corner was put on the market after the company's acquisition of Bethany House Publishers and its decision to focus on publishing. According to DeBoer, the most significant change the pair have made was moving to a slightly larger location in the same mall in 2005. They also added a bathroom big enough to accommodate a stroller and shifted their buying to just-in-time inventory. However, many things have stayed the same, such as the 10-person staff, which includes a member of the Baker family. Even Pooh's Corner's current color palette and lighting reflect choices made by DeBoer and Bulthuis when they ran the store for the Bakers. More importantly, the store's customers have stayed through the transition. "New grandparents come in who used to shop for their kids, and we hire kids who used to come to storytime," says DeBoer. Pooh's Corner continues to strengthen its local connections through partnerships with area arts organizations like the symphony and ballet and participation in West Michigan's Local First.