After a stay of enforcement, publishers have until February 10, 2010, to get their CPSIA-mandated third-party testing procedures in place. However, publishers and retailers have had to comply with the law’s safety requirements since February 10 of this year, which has led the large retail chains to demand testing for all children’s products, some as early as last November. read more

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A quarter century after children’s booksellers broke away from the American Booksellers Association and formed a separate group, the Association of Booksellers for Children, the two have begun discussions to consider reuniting. Among the possibilities that such a collaboration might take: for the ABC to become a division or department of ABA.

In a mailing that went out late last week to ABC booksellers, association president Becky Anderson of Anderson’s Bookshops in Naperville, Ill., noted that the organization is not initiating this because of any problems at ABC right now. "However, as you know," a second letter enclosed with Anderson’s and signed by the entire ABC board stated, "the publishing industry is facing a period of unprecedented change. Even the best and brightest among us are blind to what the future may hold in terms of shifting consumer patterns, technological innovation, and publisher priorities.... We want to be proactive at looking toward the future."

Based out of Jerusalem, Shari Dash Greenspan serves as the tiny publisher's jack-of-all-trades. She acquires and edits manuscripts, collaborates with the illustrators and maintains Flashlight’s web site. "I don’t think the fact that I juggle so many aspects of the business is unusual in very small publishing houses," Greenspan says. At her daughter’s suggestion, she even named Flashlight Press—after a child’s favorite way to read under the covers.

The logo of the Arab Cultural Center, publisher of Twilight.

"The Harry Potter books did not sell as well when translated into Arabic as it did in other parts of the world," said Haissam Fadel, foreign rights and sales manager of the Arab Cultural Center, an Arabic-language publisher interviewed at last month’s Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. "It may have had something to do with the fact that readers didn’t know exactly who the books were for—adults or children." Still, Fadel said, when Rowling’s books were translated into Arabic by Egyptian publisher Nahdet Misr, it helped to open a new market of readers—those now willing to give YA a try.

Fadel’s company, which has divisions in Casablanca and Beirut, took a chance and bought the Arabic-language rights to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight quartet at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. "At the time, the books were not so well-known in the Arabic world," he said, "but the movie changed all that."

Candlewick Press has acquired a picture book, Ladder to the Moon, by Maya Soetoro-Ng, sister of President Obama. Soetoro-Ng is a writer and educator with a PhD in international comparative education. Candlewick president and publisher Karen Lotz acquired the book and will also edit; Jennifer Gates at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth brokered the deal.

Ladder to the Moon imagines what lessons Soetoro-Ng’s four-year-old daughter might have learned from her grandmother (Soetoro-Ng’s and Obama’s mother) if the two had ever met. Soetoro-Ng is currently a high school teacher at an all-girls school in Hawaii; Ladder to the Moon is her first book. Candlewick has not yet determined the book’s illustrator or pub date.

‘Wimpy Kid’ Pub Date Revealed

Just two months after the release of The Last Straw, Abrams’s Amulet Books imprint has announced the pub date for the fourth book in Jeff Kinney’s bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. And readers won’t have to wait until next year—the book will arrive Monday, October 12. Abrams has yet to reveal the title or cover art for the latest book, but in a statement Kinney gave a sneak preview of the book’s content. "In book four I’ll be taking Greg out of the school setting for the first time and into the summer, which opens up lots of exciting possibilities." More than 16 million copies of Wimpy Kid books are in print in the U.S.

NFL Stars Peyton and Eli Manning Sign with Scholastic

Eli, Peyton and Archie Manning. Photo: Bill Frakes, Getty Images.

NFL superstar quarterbacks, brothers, and Super Bowl MVPs Peyton Manning and Eli Manning, along with their father, legendary quarterback Archie Manning, have signed with Scholastic to publish a picture book in September 2009. Additionally, the Mannings will serve as the first-ever Scholastic Book Clubs’ ClassroomsCare Ambassadors of Reading this year. read more

Four sets of the custom-made plush characters (created by MerryMakers) will crisscross the country over the next few months. Three of the packages will move between 17 bookstores in 14 states that signed up to participate in the tour (via a marketing alert Roaring Brook sent out in February); a fourth box will move between public and school libraries in Texas, starting with a kick-off at the Texas Library Association’s annual conference, currently underway in Houston. read more