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March 26, 2009
In The News
Book News
In Brief
Rights Report
People
In the Media
Bestsellers

More News
On the Scene
On the Radar
Q&A
In the Winners' Circle
Did You Miss
Contact Us

 News Briefs
Covers of the Week
Moving On Up
In Memoriam
Featured Reviews
New in Shelftalker
From the Slush Pile
 
In the News

Bologna Book Fair Draws to a Close

Rights activity was brisk on the
joint Penguin stand.
Photo: Mario Ventimiglia

The 46th annual Bologna Book Fair drew to a close this afternoon. By many accounts it was a fairly subdued show, with attendance down among U.S. and U.K. editors. Though hard news was scarce on the ground, those who were there reported a vibrant working atmosphere and good cheer. Craig Virden, our intrepid blogger, has been walking the aisles and filing frequent reports; if you've missed any of his updates, you can catch up here. And to read our story from reporter Julia Eccleshare, click here.
More News


YA Buzz Forum Joins BEA Programming
 

At BookExpo America this year, a YA panel has been added to the annual Editor & Bookseller Buzz Forum. The YA Buzz Forum will be held on Friday, May 29, at 2:30 pm. It will chaired by David Levithan, executive editorial director at Scholastic; the panelists, and their books, will be:

• Arthur Levine, v-p and editorial director of Arthur A. Levine Books, with Laini Taylor’s Lips Touch
• Ari Lewin, senior editor at Disney-Hyperion, with Sarwat Chadda’s The Devil’s Kiss
• Krista Marino, senior editor at Delacorte Press for Young Readers, with James Dashner’s The Maze Runner
• Mark Siegel, editorial director at First Second Books, with Danica Novgorodoff’s Refresh, Refresh
• Liz Szabla, editor-in-chief of Feiwel & Friends, with Jill S. Alexander’s The Sweetheart of Prosper County
• Tara Weikum, executive editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books, with Adriana Trigiani’s Viola in Reel Life
News Briefs

Legislation Introduced to Exempt Books from CPSIA
U.S. Representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-Nebraska) introduced legislation on Tuesday to exclude so-called “ordinary” books from the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Other Congressional efforts seeking to amend the CPSIA have been introduced previously, including by Representative Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), but this is the first to specifically address books alone.

While the Consumer Products Safety Commission has said it would not enforce the Act’s provisions for ink-on-paper or ink-on-board books printed after 1985, the publishing industry has been pushing for an outright exclusion, either from the CPSC or Congress. read more



Lookybook Shutters
Lookybook’s virtual shelves are now bare. A favorite of librarians, parents, and elementary school teachers, Web site Lookybook closed last Friday, unable to keep pages turning because of the economy.

“We were fraught with the perfect storm of issues,” says co-founder Craig Frazier, and also the author and illustrator of the Stanley series of picture books. “While we had seed money to get started, it became difficult in this environment to get money. It would take an angel coming out of the woodwork to step up and reverse Lookybook’s closure.” read more
Book News

New Pooh: A Preview of the Upcoming Sequel
This week we provide a sneak peek at illustrator Mark Burgess’s artwork for Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first authorized sequel to Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, which is written by David Benedictus, will be published by Dutton on October 5, 2009.

Also this week, Penguin Audio announced that it has signed actor and Grammy-winning audiobook narrator Jim Dale to read the audio version of Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. The audio will be simultaneously released with the print version on October 5. “It will be a joy to do,” said Dale about bringing to life to more stories about what he called “one of the most classic and beloved characters in all of children’s literature.” Winnie-the-Pooh was first published in 1926 and is available in 50 languages around the world.

—Shannon Maughan
On The Scene

Teens, Tweens, and Me: An Afternoon at the Biggest Teen Author
Signing Ever!
More than 40 YA authors met fans
and signed books at a packed event
at Books of Wonder last Sunday. 
The multicolored sign outside of Books of Wonder called the event I was about to walk into “The Biggest Teen Author Signing Ever!” As I stepped inside the Manhattan children’s bookstore last Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The sign, however, wasn’t lying. What I walked into certainly appeared to be the biggest teen author signing ever. Period. Exclamation!

Once through the constantly revolving bookstore door, my boyfriend Jeremy, who had come along for moral support, and I were immediately separated by two giggling tween girls clutching Gossip Girl books in one hand and cell phones in the other. As they blew through us and hurried down one of the aisles, I turned around quickly and grabbed Jeremy’s coat.

“I’m a little overwhelmed,” I said.

“Uh, yeah. Me too.” read more

Click here to see a photo gallery of the event.
Covers of the Week

Mirror, Mirror...
 
Though two spring YA novels, North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley (Little, Brown) and Evermore by Alyson Noël (St. Martin’s Griffin) certainly have their differences, they have a few things in common—including the same cover photo. In Headley’s novel, the heroine, Terra, has a large port wine stain on her right cheek, which she’s self-conscious about. Evermore, the first book in Noël’s Immortals series, is the story of a teenager with some self-consciousness of her own—she has the unsettling ability to sense people’s auras and learn their life history by touching them.

“With the Evermore cover, we wanted to evoke a complicated teen love story set in a supernatural world,” says designer Angela Goddard at St. Martin’s Press, who designed the cover with associate designer Jeanette Levy. “Ever, the main character, is physically beautiful but emotionally fragile due to recent tragic experiences, and the expression on the girl’s face in the photograph fit the mood perfectly.” read more
In Brief

An Event with ‘Teeth’

Author Carrie Ryan may have been at a castle in Ireland when her debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Delacorte, Apr.) went on sale, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some domestic celebrations as well. This past weekend, Ryan’s book was feted at a launch party at The Open Book in Greenville, S.C. In keeping with the setting of Ryan’s novel (a village threatened by vicious zombies), gummi brains and glow-in-the-dark zombies were on hand. Here, Ryan (center) is joined by two other debut YA authors: Saundra Mitchell (l.), who wrote Shadowed Summer (Delacorte, Feb.) and Jackson Pearce (r.), author of the forthcoming As You Wish (HarperTeen, Aug.).

Raleigh Rallies for Judy Moody

Author Megan McDonald was in Raleigh, N.C., this past weekend, visiting Quail Ridge Books & Music, since the store was among the winners of a Judy Moody contest last fall. The event included a Judy and Stink Moody lookalike contest, trivia, a live guinea pig (in honor of Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express, recently out in paperback from Candlewick) and more. Here, McDonald (r.) helps as Quail Ridge bookseller Linda Walker (l.) reads Mayor Charles Meeker’s official proclamation naming March 21 Judy Moody Day. The author also gave the audience a sneak preview of a June addition to the series, Judy Moody & Stink: The Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Treasure Hunt, which is set on an island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Partying to Get Boys to Read
To launch Michael Sullivan’s The Sapphire Knight, the first book in the Bard fantasy series aimed at middle-grade boys, six-year-old PublishingWorks, Inc., in Exeter, N.H., is gearing up for its biggest promotion yet, says v-p of marketing and publicity Carol Corbett. The press is teaming up with iParty and Cold Stone Creamery and raffling 10 free parties with the author and ice-cream cupcakes for up to 24 guests. The parties, which are aimed at encouraging boys to find their inner bard and get interested in storytelling, are an extension of the work done by Sullivan, former New Hampshire Librarian of the Year and author of Connecting Boys With Books, as well as the Escapade Johnson series. Booksellers and their customers are encouraged to enter; entry forms are available online and the drawing will be held on May 12.

The ‘Dog Days’ of Spring
In Marlane Kennedy’s middle-grade novel The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes (Greenwillow, Mar.), the protagonist—who is not initially a “dog person”—ends up taking care of a St. Bernard puppy. Fittingly, at the author’s launch party for the book this past weekend at the Wooster Book Company in Wooster, Ohio, a St. Bernard named Otis was on hand for the event, which doubled as a fundraiser for a local animal shelter and the St. Bernard Rescue Foundation. Only six months ago, Otis, seen here with Kennedy, was a stray, but with the help of the Humane Society and a new family, he’s back in top form.
Q&A
Brent Runyon

Bookshelf spoke with Brent Runyon about his new novel, Surface Tension (Knopf, Mar.)

Five years ago, after writing The Burn Journals, your memoir of your adolescent years, you mentioned that you wanted to go on to write novels, and you have. How is writing fiction different from writing an autobiography?

Fiction is like building a house from scratch. You know that there will be walls and doors, a kitchen and bath, but you're not sure where they'll be. Writing a memoir is more like restoring a house. Everything is already there. It's a present-tense remembering of the way things were. When I write a novel, I still make it as true and real as I can. There's the same kind of emotional truth there, but it doesn't hurt as badly to write it out. read more

In Memoriam

 

A memorial service was held last Friday in Old Greenwich, Conn., for librarians Kate McClelland and Kathy Krasniewicz, who died in a car accident on January 28, on their way home from ALA Midwinter in Denver. Among the speakers were Pat Scales, ALSC president; publisher Brenda Bowen; and author/illustrator Brian Selznick. Selznick created a memorial piece of art for the program, which is reproduced here. To read more about the service, click here.
People


Debra Lande has been named to the newly created spot of publisher of Klutz, the “books plus” division of Scholastic. She will lead the creative and editorial direction of the Klutz publishing list and manage the strategic development of the Klutz brand. Most recently she was director of product innovation for Chronicle Books.

Chronicle Books has announced three promotions in its sales and marketing departments. Kimberly Anderson has been named executive director of domestic sales, Holly Smith has been appointed associate director of trade and mass market sales, and Cathleen Brady has been named director of children’s marketing and publicity.
In the Winners' Circle


The Tamer Institute for Community Education, a Palestinian NGO, has won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest prize for children’s literature. The group helps children in Gaza and the West Bank learn to read and write. The five-million crown ($630,000) prize is given in memory of Pippi Longstocking creator Astrid Lindgren.
Featured Reviews

Duck! Rabbit!
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illus. by Tom Lichtenheld. Chronicle, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8118-6865-5
The team behind The OK Book again plays with perspective and visual trickery, this time using a classic image that looks like either a rabbit (with long ears) or a duck (with a long bill). In a series of spreads that show the boldly outlined duck/rabbit against a blue sky, two offstage speakers, their words appearing on either side of the animal’s head, argue their points of view. The snappy dialogue makes for fine read-aloud: “Are you kidding me? It’s totally a duck.” “It’s for sure a rabbit.” Though the main image is basically static, Lichtenheld has fun with the details and setting, placing the animal behind green leaves (“Now the duck is wading through the swamp.” “No, the rabbit is hiding in the grass”), near water (“Look, the duck is so hot, he’s getting a drink.” “No, the rabbit is so hot, he’s cooling off his ears”), etc. The creature’s disappearance brings a brief moment of reconciliation, but the twist ending puts the speakers at odds again. Duck? Rabbit? As kids will readily see, it depends on how you look at it. Ages 3–up.(Apr.)

Escape Under the Forever Sky
Eve Yohalem. Chronicle, $16.99 (228p) ISBN 978-0-8118-6653-8
Lucy lives a suffocating life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in Yohalem’s debut, which was inspired by true events. With her mother working constantly as a U.S. ambassador and her life in Bethesda, Md., far away, Lucy is lonely and confined to the house because of her somewhat reckless nature. Most of her time is spent at school or with the house servant, an elderly Ethiopian man named Iskinder, who tells her stories of the country’s history, traditions and power struggles. More than anything, Lucy wants to explore, free to discover the animals of the African forest and the Simien Mountains (“Africa is the only place I’ve ever been where human beings feel like just one small part of a vast and complicated earth”). When Lucy is kidnapped and held for ransom, she is finally given the chance to use her strength and wildlife knowledge to survive. Lucy’s past and present are gracefully woven together, through well-integrated flashbacks, into a powerful picture of the life of a foreigner in Ethiopia. The story should appeal to all with a sense of adventure. Ages 10–up.(Apr.).

Reviews from the March 23 issue of Publishers Weekly.

see all of this week's reviews
including our web exclusive Annex *
On the Radar

Are you nursing a pair of fang marks in your neck, but also a broken heart? Scholastic may have just the book for you, when it crashes The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You by Vlad Mezrich (if you need to be told it’s a pseudonym...) onto its fall list. “It’s a dating guide for dating the undead—forked tongue firmly in cheek—and to getting the vampire of your dreams,” says editor David Levithan, adding that the book's title came to him one evening while he was thinking about the current vampire publishing craze. “The title directed everything. Basically, we assembled a team of like-minded vampire-minded satirists—it was a team effort and a lot of fun.” read more
Moving On Up

Chronicle Finds a Hit Online

Nina Laden’s board book, Peek-a-Who? (Chronicle, 2000), keeps young readers guessing, but the title’s phenomenal popularity on Amazon has some adults pleasantly surprised, too. Last December the book was the retailing site’s highest ranked children’s picture/board book, as well as the 57th bestselling title overall, selling more than 4000 copies per week.    According to Chronicle publicity director Cathleen Brady, Peek-a-Who? has become an Amazon bestseller via “word-of-mouth by customers coupled with the site’s ‘systems’ of having the book pop-up as a recommended title practically everywhere.” read more
Rights Report


From Variety: Casting for the Fox 2000 Percy Jackson movie has just been announced. The leads will be: Logan Lerman as Percy Jackson; Alexandra Daddario as Annabeth; Brandon T. Jackson as Grover; Pierce Brosnan as Chiron; Uma Thurman as Medusa; Sean Bean as Zeus; Kevin McKidd as Poseidon; and Melina Kanakaredes as Athena. The parts of Aries, Hades and Persephone have not yet been cast. read more


Lola Bubbosh at Disney Book Group has acquired a new action/horror series by Young Bond author Charlie Higson. Rights were sold by Zosia Knopp of Puffin Books in the U.K. Disney-Hyperion plans to publish The Enemy, the first title in the series, in fall 2010. The books are set in London after a mysterious illness attacks everyone over the age of 14; the kids who are left to fend for themselves embark on an epic journey to what they hope is a new life. Higson’s Young Bond series has sold more than a million copies worldwide and has been translated into 24 languages.


ImageMovers and Disney are acquiring film rights to Charlie Fletcher’s YA fantasy book series Stoneheart, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The third book in the Disney-Hyperion series, Silvertongue, comes out on April 7.


Paramount Pictures has acquired Sarah Mylnowski’s forthcoming YA novel Gimme a Call. Andy Fickman (Race to Witch Mountain) will direct and co-produce. In the story, a high school senior who is dissatisfied with her life drops her phone in a fountain; when she fishes it out, she discovers the only call she can make is to herself—at age 14. Delacorte will publish in May 2010.


Director Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) has signed on with Summit Entertainment for a movie version of Gayle Forman’s YA novel If I Stay, according to Entertainment Weekly. If I Stay pubs next month from Dutton. Hardwicke is also in discussion with Columbia Pictures to develop and direct an adaptation of James Patterson's Maximum Ride series, according to the Hollywood Reporter.


Jessica Rothenberg at Razorbill has signed Richelle Mead’s untitled sixth and final novel in the Vampire Academy series, as well as a new, as yet untitled six-book YA series. Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management did the deal for world English rights.


Rothenberg also signed up Grimm City by Robert Paul Weston (Zorgamazoo), about an orphaned teen wolf who must solve the mystery of his family’s sinister past, and an untitled second novel. Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists was the agent, in a co-publication deal with Penguin Canada.


London-based Walker Productions, a subsidiary of publisher Walker Books, has signed a TV development deal with Ireland’s Jam Media for Polly Dunbar’s Tilly and Friends books, published here by Candlewick Press.
 
In the Media


From USA Today: The long-awaited movie of Where the Wild Things Are is finally nearing completion.


And links to the Wild Things trailer are all over the Internet now. Here’s one from Entertainment Weekly.


From The Daily Beast:
Is If I Stay the next Twilight?


From the Wall Street Journal: A look at the mother-daughter team behind the bestselling House of Night series.


From MTV.com: The Twilight DVD sold three million copies on its first day of release.


From Entertainment Weekly: Actress Jennifer Aniston and her father have teamed up to narrate the recording of a new children’s book called Loukoumi’s Good Deeds.
Did You Miss?


This week, we feature our annual roundup of the previous year’s bestselling books for children. Check out our extensive lists.


Lerner Publishing Group has signed a distribution agreement with ARC Press, a new division of American Reading Company.
New in ShelfTalker


This week Alison brings up a bookseller pet peeve: how can you buy picture books from sales reps if they don’t have any materials to show? She also shows some fun book-related t-shirts, and sings the praises of writer Geraldine McCaughrean. Read all her latest posts here.
Bestsellers

Series and Tie-ins
March

 
  1. Twilight saga.
    Stephenie Meyer.
    Little, Brown/Tingley
  2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
    Jeff Kinney.
    Abrams/Amulet
  3. House of Night.
    PC Cast and Kristin Cast.
    St. Martin’s Griffin
  4. The 39 Clues.
    Scholastic
  5. Clique.
    Lisi Harrison.
    Little, Brown/Poppy

see full list
 
Contact Us


Dear Bookshelf Readers,

Hope you enjoyed this week's issue. We'd
love to hear from you with any comments and suggestions—drop us a note here.

—The Editors

From the Slush Pile

Click here to read Tales from the Slush Pile from the beginning

 
Children’s Bookshelf from Publishers Weekly
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