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April 9, 2009

In The News
Book News
Dispatches
Q&A
In the Winners' Circle
Featured Reviews More News
More Book News
On the Scene
In the Media
Did You Miss?
New in ShelfTalker

News Briefs
In Brief
Rights Report
People
Mark Your Calendar
From the Slush Pile

In the News

The Return of ‘Blueberries for Sal’

As many booksellers across the country have noticed, Robert McCloskey’s Caldecott Honor-winning picture book, Blueberries for Sal (Viking, 1948), hasn’t been available to order for the past year. However, following several years of negotiation between Penguin and McCloskey’s estate, that situation is about to change.
According to Regina Hayes, president and publisher of Viking Children’s Books, the division first learned four years ago that McCloskey’s estate was interested in reclaiming rights to Blueberries for Sal and other titles. "As soon as we got notice that the estate was considering this, we began negotiating to keep those rights," Hayes said. But coming to terms took time, and on April 3 of last year, Viking was informed by Penguin’s corporate counsel that they had to take the book off the market. "We essentially did not have the rights [to sell it], but neither did anyone else," said Hayes.

"Hardly a day went by when reps didn’t say, ‘What’s happening with Blueberries?’," Hayes recalled. Finally, last Thursday, an agreement was reached between Viking and the McCloskey estate for the entire body of McCloskey’s work. read more

More News

ABC Announces BEA Events

The Association of Booksellers for Children has released its schedule of programs for BookExpo America. Children’s booksellers and librarians will want to grab their calendars and make note of this full lineup of events. Just confirmed are the speakers at the ABC Not-a-Dinner and (Mostly) Silent Auction on Friday, May 29, at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. Shannon Hale (Forest Born) will host the keynote program, after which Newbery Medalist Katherine Paterson (The Day of the Pelican) and Mike Lupica (Million Dollar Throw) will speak. This event will also include the first-ever live announcement of the E.B. White Awards winners (see In the Winners' Circle for the just-announced shortlist). And click here to see a listing of what’s on for the rest of the weekend.

News Briefs

Sales Changes at Candlewick

John Mendelson, director of trade sales at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Boston, is crossing the river to take on the newly created position of senior v-p of sales and digital initiatives at Candlewick Press in Somerville, Mass., starting May 18.

read more

Houghton Rolls Out Curious George App for iPhone

Houghton Mifflin has released its first branded Curious George title, an application based on the August 2008 book Curious George's Dictionary. The release marks Houghton’s first foray into publishing children’s content for the Apple device and is, according to David Langevin, Houghton’s v-p and director of digital markets, a move into what the house feels could be a lucrative market.

read more

Book News

Sourcebooks to Reprint ‘Witch Mountain’

Jacket art from the original 1968
edition from Westminster Press.

The fact that Disney’s recent blockbuster hit Race to Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) as a taxi driver who winds up helping two aliens-disguised-as-teenagers find their space ship, has literary roots may have been lost on a few fans. The reason is that the film’s source material, a backlist science fiction title by Alexander Key, fell out of print years ago. Although Key’s book, Escape to Witch Mountain, originally published in 1968, wasn’t on shelves in time to reap the benefits of Race to Witch Mountain, Key’s agency, McIntosh & Otis, has seen to it that Escape to Witch Mountain will receive a chance at a new print life.
read more

More Book News

A ‘Quiet’ Debut Is Making Noise

Lisa McCue’s spirited animal characters have graced the pages of 175 picture books, including reworkings of classic Corduroy titles and stories by Margaret Wise Brown. This season the veteran illustrator ventures out on her own in Quiet Bunny, a picture book from Sterling that has already returned to press since its March release.

"I knew it was time for me to spread my wings, even though I have always thought of myself as an artist and didn’t feel I had the skills to be a writer," McCue says of her decision to write as well as illustrate a book. A self-described "idea person," she had compiled an "idea file," yet hadn’t found quite the right inspiration to craft her own story. "All it took was finding something I felt passionate about," she notes.

read more

On the Scene

From the Page to the Stage

Bell and Paterson.

When adapting a novel to the stage or screen, all writers will eventually be confronted with one question: How faithful will they remain to the original work? For New York playwright David Paterson, the pressure to stay true to the original piece may be a little more intense. After all, most of the major pieces he has adapted, including the 2007 film Bridge to Terabithia, began as well-known and beloved novels written by his Newbery Medalist mother, Katherine Paterson. "Her publishers hate it because she gives me the license for a dollar," he said with a smile.
Paterson appeared last Saturday on a panel at the New York Public Library along with Brenda Bell, artistic director of a children's theatre.

read more

In Brief

Have Your Cake and Read It, Too

Over the weekend, author Joyce Sidman visited The Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, Minn., for a launch event for her new picture book Red Sings from Treetops, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski (Houghton, Apr.), a poetic exploration of colors and seasons. The book was the store’s top-selling title last week. In the spirit of the book, during the event Sidman (seen here with a celebratory Red Sings cake) and the 30+ attendees did some group poem-writing of their own; here’s an excerpt of their poem titled "White": "White looks like snow at the north pole in the winter, or like paper on a desk waiting for words./ White smells like a freezer full of ice cubes or like a vanilla ice cream cone./ White sounds like piano keys or the whisper of a soft wind.”

Going ‘Wild’ in Wisconsin

Last week, a group of Wisconsin children’s book authors did a bit of moonlighting as actors at the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire, Wis. The writers participated in a performance of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are as part of an event sponsored by the Eau Claire area school district Literacy Leaders and Reading Partners Program, which organizes reading-focused events for area children. Here, roaring their terrible roars, are (l. to r.) authors Marybeth Lorbiecki, Rebecca Wojahn, Katie McKy, Pat Schmatz, Marsha Qualey and Julie Bowe.

Q&A

Graham Salisbury

Bookshelf spoke with Graham Salisbury about his new novel, Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet(Random House/Wendy Lamb).

What got you started writing children’s books?

It was all a glorious accident. It was nothing that ever crossed my mind as a young person. Back in my first year of college at the University of Vermont, I took a speech class. One of the assignments was to go back to the dorm and then come back into class with a two-minute intro that would really hook an audience. I dreamed up this little gimmick where I would talk about surfing and then say something about a giant wave coming in. So I came in and turned my back to the class and yelled something about the wave. There must have been five heart attacks in the front row. My professor came over and said "That’s not what I had in mind." I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t go back to that class for a long time and I developed a terrible fear of public speaking. A bit later, though, I signed up for a Dale Carnegie [speaking] course. We had to write more of those two-minute intros. As I got better at it, I felt good about myself and that’s when I started writing.

read more

People

Erin Stein has joined Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as senior executive editor of franchise and licensed book programs. She will manage ongoing franchises as well as movie and media tie-in programs, and help shape the middle grade and YA paperback program. Stein was previously executive editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books with the HarperFestival imprint.

In the Winners' Circle

The shortlist for the Association of Booksellers for Children’s E.B. White Read Aloud Awards has been announced. For Picture Books: A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker, illus. by Kady MacDonald Denton (Candlewick); Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo, illus. by Harry Bliss (HarperCollins); One by Kathryn Otoshi (KO Kids Books); and Too Many Toys by David Shannon (Scholastic Press). For Older Readers: The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas (HarperCollins); Masterpiece by Elise Broach, illus. by Kelly Murphy (Holt); The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry (Houghton Mifflin); and Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston, illus. by Victor Rivas (Razorbill). In a procedural change, the E.B. White committee picked the shortlist, culled from nominations by ABC booksellers, and the winners will be chosen through an online vote, and announced at the Not-a-Dinner and (Mostly) Silent Auction on May 29 during BEA.

In the U.K. last Friday, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Atom) won the WH Smith Children’s Book of the Year prize, given as part of the annual Galaxy British Book Awards, which are informally known as the Nibbies.

Featured Reviews

Put It on the List!

Kristen Darbyshire. Dutton, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-525-47906-2
A busy mother hen makes the titular plea to her family in this funny debut about teamwork. After yet another week of running out of groceries and household items despite trips to the store—"We had pancakes, but no syrup.... We had cookies, no milk"—Mom flips out. So when she serves up a desperation dinner of "peanut butter and pickled grub on macaroni casserole," it’s sufficient motivation to get Papa and the peeps to finally fall in line, helping with list-making and shopping. Plenty of families will see themselves in Darbyshire’s universal and humorous situations, and the minimal yet sometimes dramatic text will have great appeal for preschoolers. ( "It was... boo-boo, no Band-Aid... wet baby, no diaper... macaroni, no cheese... peanut butter, no jelly. I don’t even want to talk about the toilet paper.") Darbyshire uses bold blocks of color as background and a smudgy black outline for figures and objects. Her gentle anthropomorphizing of her chickens makes their oval heads, dot eyes and triangular orange beaks especially expressive—a feat to cluck about. Ages 3–5. (Apr.)

Tumtum & Nutmeg:
Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall

Emily Bearn, illus. by Nick Price. Little, Brown, $16.99 (512p) ISBN 978-0-316-02703-8
Bearn makes her debut with a trio of comfortingly old-fashioned tales about a pair of kindly mice, living in a forgotten broom closet in dilapidated Rose Cottage, home to Arthur and Lucy Mildew and their father. Tumtum and Nutmeg’s residence—Nutmouse Hall—is as splendid as the Mildews’ home is forlorn, and the good-hearted couple secretly takes on the task of putting, and keeping, the cottage in order. Unexpected adventures ensue: in each of the stories the decidedly nonadventurous mice rescue friends and defeat enemies, always putting themselves in great danger and emerging victorious. Very British in setting, tone and supporting characters (a blustery mouse general, an elegant elderly ballet mistress and her troupe of young ballerinas, greedy pirate rats), the stories are filled with descriptions of good food, cheering fires and warm beds. Price’s black-and-white line drawings have a scratchy, comic air that brings a welcome edge to the gentle storytelling. While some may find the adventures on the quiet side, the sympathetic characters, enchanting setting and quickly paced plots will hold readers’ interest. Ages 6–9. (Apr.)

Reviews from the April 6 issue of Publishers Weekly.

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

Dispatches

Twittergirls: Laurie Halse Anderson on Tour

Despite the serious subject matter of her newest novel—teenage anorexia—Wintergirls (Viking, Mar.), there was plenty of fun during National Book Award finalist Laurie Halse Anderson’s recent two-week U.S. book tour, which wrapped up this past weekend. During the tour, Anderson provided her fans with updates from the road via her Twitter stream.

Click here to see some of the highlights (and some of her tweets).

Rights Report

Disney Book Group has acquired book rights to Grandma’s Intergalactic Bed & Breakfast by debut author Clete Smith. The book revolves around a boy who visits his hippie grandma for the first time and discovers that her bed & breakfast caters to vacationing aliens. It is scheduled for spring 2011 publication. Film rights have already been optioned by Disney for Mandeville Films.

As a followup to self-taught cut-paper artist's Nikki McClure's first picture book, All in a Day, written by Cynthia Rylant, Susan Van Metre at Abrams has signed up two more books from McClure. The first, Mama, Is It Summer Yet?, which she will both write and illustrate, will be published in spring 2010. Steven Malk at Writers House was the agent.

British director Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) has signed to direct The Box of Delights, a movie based on John Masefield’s 1935 fantasy novel, about a boy entrusted with a magic box that allows him to travel through time. According to Variety, Brilliant Films is funding development of the feature, which Frank Cottrell Boyce (Millions) is adapting.

In the Media

From the Telegraph: At a dinner last week thrown by British prime minister Gordon Brown, President Obama revealed himself as a big Harry Potter fan, telling author J.K. Rowling that he had read all her books himself and to his children.
read more

From New York magazine: Students at Rutgers University broke the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest gathering of people dressed as Waldo; click on the link to see our favorite photo of the week.
read more

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: More vampires, please! The Washington state senate passed a bill to attract more film and TV production after the runaway success of the Twilight movie; one state senator bemoaned the fact that New Moon, the sequel, will be shot in British Columbia.
read more

Did You Miss?

From the pages of PW

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Virginia Lee Burton’s birth, Houghton Mifflin has embarked on an ambitious republishing program, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is mounting an exhibition, and a documentary film on her life will air on public TV.

read more

Mark Your Calendar

The New School in New York City is hosting a series of forums on writing for children, hosted by editor Deborah Brodie. The next forum takes place Tuesday, May 5 from 6:30–7:30 p.m. and features Leonard S. Marcus, book critic and children’s book historian. His books include Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon, Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom and Minders of Make-Believe. Tickets cost $5 and can be ordered from the New School by calling 212-229-5488. For more information about the series, call 212-229-5611.

New in ShelfTalker

Big changes are afoot at ShelfTalker: Alison has handed over the blogging reins to booksellers Elizabeth Bluemle and Josie Leavitt, of The Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, Vt. They’re off to a lively start in their inaugural week, and we invite you to check out all their new posts here.

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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

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