Queens of the Castle: 10 YA Authors in Ireland

The week before St. Patrick’s Day, 10 YA writers descended on a castle in Ireland, never to be heard from again. Well, that might have been the result had the trip taken place in one of their novels, but in reality, the authors worked on their novels, took day trips in the surrounding area and made “huge tureens of soup,” according to Irish author Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon’s Lexicon), who helped organize the writing retreat—which did indeed take place in a castle.

Chronicle Trots Out New Horse Series

Two horse-loving best friends from an Australian bush town star in Chronicle’s Horse Crazy series by Alison Lester, launched this month with The Silver Horse Switch and The Circus Horse. Originally published by Allen & Unwin in Lester’s native Australia under the title of Bonnie and Sam, the series marks a double departure for the author: these are her debut early chapter books and the first books she wrote that she did not also illustrate.

Bringing Comics to the Amazon Kindle

Since the release of the Kindle, Amazon’s popular digital reading device, a few publishers have started to experiment with converting their comics to Kindle editions.

Sava Fills Shelves With Kids' Graphic Novels

Scott Christian Sava is best known for his web and print comic The Dreamland Chronicles, but this year he is branching out in a new direction: He has just published four new children’s graphic novels, and he expects to have four more out by midyear and still more after that.

One of the World’s Best: Secret Headquarters

In 2005 when Dave Pifer and David Ritchie were casting about for a retail venture in Los Angeles, they initially settled on a skateboard shop. But at the last minute they switched the store’s focus to incorporate a different childhood passion: comics.

Comics Briefly

Panelmania: Adventures in Cartooning

A cartooning elf helps a princess learn the secrets of good cartooning, in this 5 page previews of the instruction book/story book for younger readers by James Sturm, Alexis Frederick-Frost and Andrew Arnold. Adventures in Cartooning is due in April from First Second.

Norton’s Mandela Comics Bio Offers New Info

In celebration of the 91st birthday of Nelson Mandela on July 18, W. W. Norton is publishing Nelson Mandela: The Authorized Comic Book, a book collection of a series of biographical comics on the life and accomplishments of the former South African president.

A Cavafy Person: Daniel Mendelsohn

Critic and memoirist Daniel Mendelsohn undertook the Herculean task of translating and annotating all the poems written by the great Modern Greek poet C.P. Cavafy (1863—1933), including his last, unfinished poems, never before published in English. It was a labor of love, and Knopf is publishing the results this month in two volumes.

Travel Book Market Tanked In 2008

The U.S. travel book market fell 16% in 2008, to $279 million, according to the newest edition of Travel Publishing Year Book, published by Stephen Mesquita, the U.K.—based travel publishing analyst. Sales are based on figures from Nielsen BookScan and cover about 70% of the book market. This is the second time Mesquita has included data from the U.

Web Exclusive Reviews: Week of 3/16/2009

This week's Web: psychological trauma and the new veterans, life with a birdkeeper, the rise and fall of an economic Olympus, the policy of science, the science of the paranormal, and what a professor of entrepreneurship wishes she knew a long time ago. And in food: around the world and across Wisconsin with classic dishes like hot dogs, pie, and a dozen kinds of pancakes (plus German Rice Waffles!).

Fiction Book Reviews

Emily's Ghost Denise Giardina . Norton , $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-393-06915-0 Giardina (Saints and Villains) offers Brontë fans a solid biographical novel portraying sisters Anne, Charlotte and Emily as different in temperament but in love with the same man, fighting the same illnesses and withdrawing from the same grim realities to write poetry and fiction that express their individual...

Nonfiction Book Reviews

You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon but Get Lost in the Mall Colin Ellard . Doubleday , $24.95 (240p) ISBN 978-0-385-52806-1 This delightful, dense and illuminating book by Ellard, an experimental psychologist, explores how we navigate space and hone our sense of direction, despite being paradoxically spatially primitive and overly evolved.

Q & A with Melissa Marr

Bookshelf spoke with Melissa Marr about her new novel, Fragile Eternity (HarperCollins, Apr.).

Where’s Bono? And What’s His Favorite Book Charity?

Almost exactly a year ago, when Candlewick Press moved its offices to Davis Square in Somerville, Mass., the building’s proximity to the Somerville Theatre, a 90-year old movie theatre/concert hall, wasn’t even a consideration. But it became one after it was picked for U2’s Boston concert to promote its 12th CD, No Line on the Horizon.

Talk of the ‘Times’: A ‘New York Times’ Reviewers Panel

“Serendipity!” That was the succinct answer given by Julie Just, children’s books editor of the New York Times Book Review last Saturday, when asked how she determines just which books will be reviewed in the prestigious paper. “It could be a certain cover that you fall in love with, or recommendations from colleagues,” she said. “It could just be reading, reading, reading. But it often comes down to serendipity.”

Hungry? The Latest on ‘The Hunger Games’

One of the most heavily buzzed-about titles of 2008 was Suzanne Collins’s dystopian novel The Hunger Games, and there’s already plenty of anticipation—and news—ahead of the second book, Catching Fire, due this fall from Scholastic Press. Here’s a roundup of the latest, including an earlier release date for Catching Fire, as well as a new contest, which is being announced for the first time here in Children’s Bookshelf.

The New York Times Debuts Comics Bestseller List

The New York Times has launched a weekly Graphic Books bestseller list that tracks the bestselling comics and graphic novels.

Beacon Plans Graphic Adapt of Kindred; Nonfiction Comics Line

Beacon Press, a 155 year-old Boston-based nonprofit publisher with a mission driven by social justice, will publish a graphic adaptation of the late Hugo-award winning science-fiction novelist Octavia Butler’s much-praised novel Kindred, the latest comics work to be acquired by Beacon.

Fantagraphics Brings Tardi to the US

Legendary French cartoonist Jacques Tardi is finally coming to the US with two grphic novels due this summer from Fantagraphics.