With the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets already breaking box office records and the second installment of The Lord of the Rings still much awaited, children's books continue to feature in the media in England—at least in non-book forms. But the books, too, are still attracting considerable optimism, particularly around fiction, which, riding on the popularity of Philip Pullman, J.K. Rowling and Jacqueline Wilson, has been given a fresh lease on life.
New authors seem to be benefiting from this especially. Eoin Colfer's overwhelming success with Artemis Fowl and U.S. author Daniel Handler's Lemony Snicket books have shown that new-name authors can be sold, and sold well. The major chains remain excited by the new—and sometimes unpredictable—sales possibilities of children's books. In many instances they've taken children's books out of their own sections, allowing them to share the major promotional tables in a way that would have been unthinkable in the past.
And it's not just the book trade that is recognizing the value of children's books. The Prime Minister has invited leading children's authors and illustrators to celebrate their achievements at a reception at 10 Downing Street on December 2.
In the week preceding the U.K. opening of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, sales of the book lifted it to #4 in the Sunday Times bestseller list. When the film did open, it immediately set a record as the highest grossing film in the U.K. in its first weekend, with box office earnings of £18.4 million (and $88.4 million in the U.S.). In other areas of business, too, Harry Potter continues to strike gold. Hornby, a manufacturer of model railways, announced that interim pre-tax profits doubled, to £1.7 million on turnover up a third at £14 million. The figures were much helped by sales of the company's new red engine, the Harry Potter Hogwarts Express.
HIT Entertainment's full-year revenue figures showed a turnover of £121 million in October, up from £52.3 million, an 131% increase over last year. Launched only six years ago, HIT Entertainment has picked up and created top brands, including Angelina Ballerina and Pingu, and, more recently, Bob the Builder, which accounted for just under half of the company's increase. Sales of Bob the Builder videos topped 3.5 million units in the U.S. and one million in the U.K.
The recent acquisition of Gullane Entertainment, which owns the Thomas the Tank Engine license, strengthens the company further. Peter Orton, chairman of HIT Entertainment, said, "As a result of our carefully executed strategy, growing both organically as well as through acquisitions, we are making significant progress in our ambition of becoming the leading force in young children's entertainment."
Faber & Faber, whose small list includes classics such as Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and current bestsellers like Awful End and Terrible Times by Philip Ardagh, plans to double the sales of its children's list in the next two to three years. Growth is to come from backlist sales, which will include exploiting opportunities of rights reversions, as well as doubling the size of the frontlist, taking it from around 25 to 50 titles a year and marketing it strongly.
"We're aggressively becoming mainstream while also making the best use of our backlist," said children's editor Suzy Jenvey. "We've just signed a six-figure deal for Philip Ardagh in the U.S. as well as a three-book deal with Carol Ann Duffy for her next three children's poetry collections. I'm also strengthening our teenage fiction with two substantial deals for new books for next year."
Scholastic launched its first Klutz titles this season; 50 titles went on sale through the trade and through nontraditional outlets. Scholastic brought global acquisition of Klutz from the Canadian company Corus Entertainment in March for $43 million, with an add-on fee for good sales performance.
People in the News
Fiona Clarke has been named as the new managing director of Egmont Children's Books. Clarke, formerly head of Oxford University Press's educational and children's division, took up her position in October. She replaces Susannah McFarlane, who is moving to Australia. Clarke had worked as a schools and reference editor at OUP since 1977. She became the managing director of the educational and children's division in 1989, a post she held until earlier this summer when she was replaced by Kate Harris.
Egmont's children's list has recently been slimmed down and restructured under McFarlane, who guided it to a significant increase in profitability in 2001 after a long period of refocusing and recovery following its purchase from Reed Children's Books. "I'm very excited to be at Egmont," Clarke said. "The strong fiction and picture books are familiar to me from OUP. The things that are new to me are licensing and characters. I've done a bit with the Magic Key [OUP's reading program] but nothing on this scale."
Coming from an educational background, Clarke said she has plans to look at the Egmont learning list and build on it. She has already consolidated Egmont's trade publishing, giving Cally Poplak, senior publisher for fiction, control of the picture books as well.
HarperCollins's long search for a new managing director for its children's division has ended. Sally Gritten, formerly Puffin marketing director, will take up the post in January, replacing Katie Fulford who has been acting as a caretaker MD since May. In addition to her marketing experience at Puffin, Gritten has worked as a consultant since 1995 for a range of clients, including publishers Walker Books and Random House and film company Aardman Animations.
Orion Children's Books has just announced its first re-structuring since Judith Elliott founded the list in 1992. Fiona Kennedy, who is currently deputy publisher and rights director of the division, will become publisher on January 1. Elliott becomes chairman, relinquishing her administrative duties but continuing to work with authors and illustrators. An editorial director will be appointed to complete the children's team. Kennedy has played a major role in Orion Children's Books since its inception. In addition to her role in managing rights and co-editions, she has had editorial responsibilities for authors, including Marcus Sedgwick, with whom she won the Branford Boase joint author and editor award.
Mary Tapissier stepped down from her role as managing director of Hodder Children's Books to become director of Hodder Headline Group personnel, training and administration. She will remain chairman of the children's division, while Charles Nettleton, who has been managing director designate since the spring, takes over as managing director. Nettleton is also managing director of the religious division, a post he will retain.
On Exhibit
The newfound power of children's books to attract audiences of all ages is demonstrated in current three major exhibitions. The National Portrait Gallery's "Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter" exhibition, which includes portraits of 54 of the leading authors and illustrators in the country, is now on tour. It's showing in Durham until February, when it will move to the Kingston Museum in Kingston, and on to Brighton in April.
Dogger, Alfie, Annie-Rose and Lucy and Tom—many of Shirley Hughes's best-loved characters are on show in an exhibition of some of her original illustrations and sketchbooks at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The exhibition, which is open until January 26, coincides with the publication of Hughes's autobiography, A Life Drawing (Bodley Head).
"The Magic Pencil," an exhibition of Quentin Blake's selection of more than 300 paintings and drawings by some of the most distinguished contemporary illustrators, opened at the British Library on November 1 and runs through the end of March.
In the Winners' Circle
The winner of this year's Eleanor Farjeon Award is Philip Pullman. Awarded for an outstanding contribution to children's books, previous winners have included critics and, more rarely, publishers, writers and illustrators. Last year's winner was Amelia Edwards, art director and co-founder of Walker Books. Pullman, who won the Whitbread Prize for The Amber Spyglass earlier this year, said, "I'm delighted by this prize because it's unlike other awards—it's not for a single book, but for something more long-term than that; and I'm honored to be following in some highly distinguished footsteps. It's nice to get an award that doesn't always go to a writer, too—a general children's book world recognition."
The shortlist for the Whitbread Children's Book 2002 is as follows: Exodus by Julie Bertagna (Young Picador); Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay (Hodder; McElderry in U.S.); Sorceress by Celia Rees (Bloomsbury; Candlewick in U.S.); and Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (Scholastic; HarperCollins in the U.S., fall 2003). The category winner will be announced on January 8 and the Book of the Year will be announced on January 28.
The Whitbread organizers have announced a change to the structure of the award, which will bring the Children's Book Award into line with the other categories. The shortlists and winners for all five categories will be announced simultaneously, and the winner of each will then be eligible for the overall Whitbread Book of the Year Award. There have been various attempts to make the Children's Book Award of equal stature to the other categories, but the failure of the children's book ever to win the Whitbread Book of the Year—most notably when J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was tipped to win and then lost out to Seamus Heaney's Beowulf—has led to a feeling of injustice among many children's authors. All that was turned on its head last year, when Philip Pullman took both the Whitbread Children's Award and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for The Amber Spyglass, the third part of his epic trilogy, His Dark Materials; it was the first time that a children's book had been judged against an adult book and won.
The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2002 was won by Sonya Hartnett for Thursday's Child (Walker; Candlewick in the U.S.). An Australian, Hartnett has been highly acclaimed in Australia since her debut with Trouble All the Way in 1984. Thursday's Child is her first book to have been published in the U.K. and it will be followed by What the Birds See next January (Candlewick will publish it in the States in February).
The shortlist for the prize: Keith Gray's Warehouse (Red Fox), Elizabeth Laird's Jake's Tower (Macmillan; Barron's in the U.S.), Linda Newbery's The Shell House (Random/David Fickling), Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Doubleday; HarperCollins in the U.S.) and Marcus Sedgwick's The Dark Horse (Orion).
