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What Do Children's Book Consumers Want?
"Children's books are not going anywhere. They're going to be a very secure category in the marketplace," said former Association of Booksellers for Children executive director Kristen McLean during a presentation at the ABA's Winter Institute with Kelly Gallagher, v-p of publishers services at Bowker/PubTrack.
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Digital Book World: Can Publishers Create “Cradle-to-College” Bond with Kids?
In today's connected, social media world, kids are increasingly becoming empowered consumers. So how are publishers looking to connect with kids in the digital age--and what works? A Digital Book World panel moderated by Kristen McLean, founder and CEO of Bookigee.com, assembled a slate of heavy hitters to discuss a critical question: what are the challenges and opportunities as technology begins to change the way publishers and kids connect?
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Strauss-Gabel Named Publisher at Dutton Children's Books
Julie Strauss-Gabel has been named v-p and publisher of Dutton Children's Books, effective immediately. She was previously associate publisher. Dutton will become a "boutique middle grade and young adult imprint with a focus on titles of exceptional literary quality and strong commercial appeal," according to Penguin.
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Digital Book World: Multimedia, Kids' Apps and the Rise of a New Form
The final day of Digital Book World brought together four publishers at the forefront of combining technology and content to create a new form of “book” that combines video, animation, audio and text in a software package that can be continually updated with new features even as it generates data about how it’s being used.
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Winter Institute: Ideas That Work
At a presentation called Ideas That Work at last week's sixth annual Winter Institute for booksellers, which took place from Jan. 18-21 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., former Association of Booksellers for Children executive director Kristen McLean, founder and CEO of tech venture Bookigee.com, and Cynthia Compton, owner of 4 Kids Books and Toys in Indianapolis, offered lots of suggestions for getting creative when it comes to displays and events.
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New Jewish Children's Books Line Launching This Fall
Marshall Cavendish, a New York-area publisher of adult trade, reference and children's books, as well as curriculum and digital research resources, is partnering with The PJ Library, a Jewish literacy program in Massachusetts, to launch a line of Jewish children's books. The first titles under the new Shofar Books imprint will release this fall.
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LBYR Expands to West Coast
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers' fiction editorial director, Jennifer Hunt, is relocating to Los Angeles and expanding the imprint's presence on the West Coast. Hunt, who oversees the middle grade and YA lists at LBYR, will be working out of a home office in L.A. and will be, as the publisher notes, providing "an on-the-ground representative to explore opportunities in the entertainment and digital arenas."
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FastPencil Premiere Signs Mercer Mayer
In less than six months, FastPencil Premiere has signed 20 authors, many of them bestsellers, and it announced its latest big name this week: children's book author and illustrator Mercer Mayer, who plans to release nine books with the imprint this year.
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Children's Agents Wernick and Pratt Launch Agency
Marcia Wernick and Linda Pratt, veteran literary agents who spent the majority of their careers at the Sheldon Fogelman Agency, are decamping to start their own eponymous outfit. The pair, who handle children's authors and illustrators, have worked together for more than 20 years and will focus on everything from picture book authors to YA novelists at the new agency, to be called Wernick & Pratt.
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Pamela Paul Named Children's Books Editor at 'NYTBR'
Pamela Paul has been named children’s books editor of the New York Times Book Review. Paul is a journalist and book critic, is the author of three nonfiction books, and is a columnist for the NYT’s Styles section.
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Winter Institute: Children’s Books in a Digital Age
Children's books are a secure category in the marketplace and bookstores will continue to play a key role as a driver of sales were among the chief findings of a joint study undertaken by Bowker/PubTrack and the Association of Booksellers for Children, which was unveiled yesterday at Winter Institute. Sponsored by Random House, Little, Brown, Macmillan, Penguin, and Scholastic, the survey examined consumer attitudes toward purchasing children’s books in three categories: adults buying for children ages 0-6, adults buying for children ages 7-12, and teen consumers ages 13-17.
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CPSIA Update: Testing Requirements Go Into Effect in February Unless Stay Is Extended
As the children's book industry approaches the two-year anniversary of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which was enacted in August 2008 and went into effect February 10, 2009, it continues to face many unresolved issues.
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Goosebottom Books Seeks to Empower and Entertain ‘Thinking Girls’
Shirin Bridges's belief that girls can do anything they set their minds to became the basis for the creation of Goosebottom Books and its first series, The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses, which includes six middle-grade titles by Bridges, illustrated by Albert Nguyen.
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This Week in Children's Apps: January 13, 2011
This week we take a look at apps featuring the Berenstain Bears and Little Critter, one from Cajun artist and author George Rodrigue, and an original app about making the perfect blueberry muffin.
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Listening Library Launches Judy Blume Contest
Fans across several generations have paid heartfelt tribute to Judy Blume in their entries in the Judy Blume Journal Contest, which Listening Library debuted January 3 on a dedicated Web site. Readers are asked to share a "Judy Blume story or memory" and to vote for their favorite journal entry posted on the site. From the five contestants receiving the most votes, Blume will select a winner, who will receive an iPod Touch, an audiobook collection, and a personal message from Blume.
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Midwesterners Sweep Top Awards
Those interested in the American Library Association's youth media awards, announced Monday morning, have probably already noticed that Clare Vanderpool, this year's Newbery Medalist, is a debut novelist, and that Erin Stead, this year's Caldecott Medalist, is a debut book illustrator. What’s also unusual about this year's crop of award recipients is how many of them don’t live on either coast. In fact, Midwestern authors and illustrators literally swept the most prestigious of the ALA prizes this year, winning both the Newbery and the Caldecott Medals, as well as the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award.
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No 'Today Show' for Vanderpool or Stead
It's become a tradition that, the day after the Youth Media awards are announced at ALA's midwinter meeting, the Newbery and Caldecott Medal winners are interviewed live on the Today Show. But for the first time in 11 years, there was no special coverage featuring the newly minted Medalists.
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New Children's Bookstore Opens in Lexington, Mass.
Children's bookstores seem to be having a resurgence, at least in the Greater Boston area. Two weeks after Wit & Whimsy opened on December 4 in Marblehead, Mass., the Elephant's Trunk Children's Bookshop in Lexington, Mass., had a soft opening the week before Christmas to celebrate the arrival of the store's bookshelves. Owner Danielle Kreger, age 28, is planning a grand opening in early February, when the 1,000-square-foot store is fully up and running, and the latest blizzard to hit New England is more of a memory.
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Movie Alert: 'I Am Number Four'
Has a book ever become a movie so quickly? Published by HarperCollins last August, just five months ago, I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore arrives in theaters next month. Of course, the YA science fiction novel, first in the Lorien Legacies series, is not really by Pittacus Lore, who is one of the Loric elders mentioned in the book. Rather, I Am Number Four was pseudonymously co-written by adult author James Frey and Jobie Hughes, a graduate of Columbia University’s creative writing program. The extremely quick path from page to screen makes some sense, since film rights to the project were sold before the book was.
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An Initial Ambassadorial Report
Katherine Paterson has just concluded the first of two years as the nation's second Ambassador for Young People's Literature. We asked her to describe her first year in the role.
Yes, to answer the obvious question. I was absolutely thrilled when Robin Adelson called asking me if I would consider being nominated as the second National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. But there were problems attached. The first problem was not to tell anyone. I don't mean don't tell anyone until after the press conference this morning, I mean don't tell anyone until January 5th, 2010. That was months away, but I was good. I didn’t tell anyone—well, I did tell my husband and my children when the Librarian of Congress made the appointment in the fall—but that doesn’t really count as telling, surely.
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