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Penguin Looks for 'Break-out' Success with 'Incarceron'
Incarceron, a young-adult dystopian fantasy by Catherine Fisher, is set in a dark world —a vast, living prison that contains metal forests, dilapidated cities, and boundless seas. Yet the outlook for the novel, released this week by Dial, is bright: the book has received five starred pre-publication reviews (including one from PW), has returned to press before pub date, and has provoked considerable enthusiastic chatter online and in bookstores...
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Q & A with Frank Cottrell Boyce
Q: What inspired you to write this insanely funny and wonderful book?
A: Two things, really. People of my age, we all wanted to go to space. Fly to the moon? That was the dream. So I started with that. And then, my family went away for a year, and when we came back one of my son's friends had had a growth spurt. He was barely recognizable. His mother said something that I actually put in the book. She said, "That's not a growth spurt. That's a mutation." -
In Brief: January 28
This week, a library mouse camps out in a New York bookstore, Taro Gomi brainstorms projects at Chronicle Books, and Vampire Academy author Richelle Mead draws fans in an online webchat.
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Keystone and Garden States Join Black Dog & Leventhal Series
Inquisitive, chatty kids lead readers on tours of individual states in State Shapes, a series of die-cut, paper-over-board books published by Black Dog & Leventhal. The volumes introduce historical, geographic, and pop-cultural facts and feature eye-catching formats designed to mimic the outline of each state. This month, the series touches down in two new locales with the release of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, bringing the total number of State Shapes titles to 13...
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Arte Público Takes Aim at Childhood Obesity
It's not just First Lady Michelle Obama who is making the eradication of childhood obesity a priority. Arte Público Press is marking its 30th anniversary and the 15th anniversary of its children's imprint, Piñata Books, with the launch of Latino Children's Wellness, a program dedicated to combating childhood obesity and the health problems associated with it, including diabetes...
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Galley Talk: 'Mercury'
Leslie Hawkins, owner of Spellbound Children's Bookshop in Asheville, N.C., talks about a spring graphic novel.
Set in a fictional small town in Nova Scotia, Hope Larson’s new graphic novel Mercury features lots of local color and an engaging story that weaves together history, romance, and teen angst. Tara is starting high school, made even more challenging by the recent loss of her home and belongings in a fire... and by the odd experience of being the new kid... -
Bloomsbury to Rejacket ‘Magic Under Glass’
Earlier this week, criticism grew online over the cover of Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass, a January fantasy novel from Bloomsbury Children's Books—the second time in recent months one of the publisher's covers has come under fire. Today, Bloomsbury apologized for the cover and released a statement saying that it would stop supplying copies of Magic Under Glass, Dolamore's debut novel, and that books with a new jacket would be made "available shortly."
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When the ALA Calls: Stead and Pinkney on Winning the Big Prize
When you win a Newbery or a Caldecott Medal, you find out in a phone call — usually very early in the morning—and then your life is instantly changed. Both Rebecca Stead and Jerry Pinkney got recently that phone call; we spoke with both of them to find out where they were when the phone rang, what their reactions were, and what came next.
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Kaiser Media Report Finds Kids' Book Reading Steady
A report on media usage released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found some relatively good news for book publishers, amid findings that generally determined that eight- to 18-year-olds are consuming more digital media than ever. According to the report, called Generation M, total media usage by that age group rose to seven hours and 38 minutes per day in 2009, up from six hours and 21 minutes in the 2004 study...
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Movie Alert: The Lightning Thief
Next month, another wildly popular fantasy series makes the jump from print to the big screen. Following in the footsteps of Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Inheritance Cycle comes The Lightning Thief. Based on the first book in Rick Riordan's bestselling Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the film arrives in movie theaters on February 12, with an all-star cast that includes Pierce Brosman, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, and Uma Thurman, with Logan Lerman starring as Percy...
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Katz's Kids: A Career Built on Babies
Cherubic, bright-eyed babies are Karen Katz’s stock in trade — and in mass market as well. Though hers may not be a household name to all, seven million copies of Katz's 40-plus board books and picture books have been sold through both the trade and mass market since her first title, Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale, was published by Henry Holt in 1997. Due this month from Little Simon is a 10th-anniversary oversize edition of Katz’s bestselling book...
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ALA Midwinter Meeting: Let It Snow
Although attendance was up at this year's ALA Midwinter Meeting, held during the Martin Luther King holiday weekend at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, over last year's meeting in Denver — 11,095 compared to 10,220 in 2009 — it was still down compared with the last time it was on the East Coast. The 2008 show in Philadelphia drew 13,601 people. Some attributed the fact that attendance wasn't stronger this year to economics, including cuts in libraries' travel budgets...
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Capstone Partners with SI Kids
Educational publisher Capstone Publishing, based in Minneapolis, has entered into a partnership with sports magazine publisher Sports Illustrated KIDS, to create a line of 82 high-interest nonfiction and fiction sports books for elementary and middle-school readers, beginning this month and going through spring 2012. The line, to be published under the Stone Arch Books and Capstone Press imprints, will include three series, debuting in January...
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Recapping the Holidays: Austerity Mixed with Success
The 2009 holiday season had more than its share of harsh realities, including reduced consumer budgets and cautious or uncertain book buyers. But that didn’t stop independent bookstores from making the best of the holiday season—and in some cases great success—with thanks to Suzanne Collins, handselling, and National Public Radio. Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Mass., devoted more space to children’s this year...
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Who Will Win the Big Awards? Scanning the Blogs
Ah, January 2010. New year, new decade—and the last chance to lay odds on which books from 2009 will be slapped with the gold and silver seals that come with the annual awarding of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, the Printz Award, and all the other prestigious prizes handed out by the ALA's ASLC and YALSA divisions next Monday. A tour of various book- and librarian-centric Web sites, blogs and listservs turns up countless confident souls eager to champion their favorite titles...
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In Brief: January 14
This week, Rick Riordan's new series, The Kane Chronicles, gets a cover reveal, and Elizabeth Eulberg now wears two hats: publicist for Stephenie Meyer, and YA author.
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Lori Benton Joins Capstone
Lori Benton has been named general manager/publisher of fiction imprints at the children's book publisher Capstone. The move puts Benton in charge of Stone Arch Books and Picture Window Books. Benton was most recently v-p and publisher of Harcourt's children's book division. Capstone's major market is schools and libraries, and Benton will be working to develop more of a trade list for the company...
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An Animated Conversation
For the inexperienced, the prospect of taking a picture book and turning it into a children's TV show may seem like a relatively simple one. But a panel presentation this past Saturday — which explored the process of transforming an (often beloved) children's picture book into a fully imagined and successful television series — proved that to be anything but the case. The panel, entitled "From the Page to the Screen... The Television Screen, That Is"...
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Joy Berry Enterprises Expands, Signs with Perseus Distribution
Perseus Distribution announced yesterday that it would take over sales and distribution for Joy Berry Enterprises, which publishes books by the educator and child development specialist Joy Berry. Berry, who has been published by a range of houses, including Scholastic and Grolier, and boasts more than 85 million books sold, began releasing books via Joy Berry Enterprises in late 2008.
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The Baby-sitters Club to Reconvene
Almost a quarter century ago, middle-grade readers were ushered into the lives of four Connecticut girls whose entrepreneurial spirit led them to start a babysitting business.The stars of Ann M. Martin's The Baby-sitters Club obviously endeared themselves to girls: between 1986 and 2000, Scholastic published 213 novels in the series, which reached an in-print tally of more than 176 million copies. This April, the publisher will release Martin's hardcover prequel to the series...
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