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Year: 2015

  • The 2015 PW Publishing Industry Salary Survey

    89% of respondents identified as white/Caucasian, the same as in 2013. The diversity problem has gained visibility, however, with only 21% of respondents feeling that steps have been made in diversifying the industry’s …

  • First Ever Worldwide Author Tour For The November 3, 2015 Release of 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School'

    NEW YORK, NY — Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS, announces today the cities for bestselling author Jeff Kinney’s unprecedented worldwide author tour. Promoting the release of book 10, Diary …

  • Katherine Applegate on Writing for Middle Graders

    Applegate began not in children’s books, but in creating pop psychology quizzes for a teen magazine! She eventually transitioned to writing for young readers. Her favorite audience: the middle-grade reader. One of the …

  • Enhanced Editions of Harry Potter Series Now Available Exclusively on iBooks for iPhone, iPad & iPod touch

    CUPERTINO, California and LONDON — Apple® announced that enhanced editions of all seven books in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are now available exclusively on the iBooks Store℠ for readers …

  • #DrawingDiversity: 'The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend' by Dan Santat





    The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette, April 2014). All rights reserved.  @littlebrown

  • The Rise in Graphic Novels for Girls

    Children’s comics overall are showing tremendous growth, with sales up 35% in the past year. The fact that the kids’ market is growing rapidly, especially for girls, gives a strong runway for …

  • Happy Birthday, Philip Pullman!

    Pullman studied at the University of Oxford, where he went on to work as a professor. After penning a few novels for adults, Pullman shifted to writing for younger readers. He …

  • Walden Media to Create a Platypus Police Squad Movie

    The children’s series by Jarrett J. Krosoczka centers on two duck-billed detectives in Kalamazoo City tasked with busting illegal candy sales and tracking down political corruption. The books are published …

  • Bloomsbury Children's Books Launches #StoriesForAll

    Each day this week, Bloomsbury is featuring testimonials from authors, parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers, and other kid lit lovers. On twitter, instagram, and tumblr, join us with the #StoriesForAll hashtag to share …

  • Kate DiCamillo's 'Edward Tulane' Adapted for the Stage

    The play—which stars Jessie Fisher, Melanie Brezill, Kelvin Roston Jr., and Patrick Budde—will premiere at The Ruth Page Center for the Arts on October 23, 2015. DiCamillo was inspired to write …

  • Elissa Tomasetti Named Senior Vice President, Marketing for Scholastic Education

    New York, NY – Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL), the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today announced the appointment of Elissa Tomasetti as Senior Vice President, Marketing for Scholastic Education. …

  • Cultural Boundaries and the Role of Experts

    By Audrey Maynard, Children’s Editor at Tilbury House Books

    Confucius is credited with saying, “True wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.” As a white editor who values working on books with authors and illustrators from different regions, religions, and cultures, it’s always been important to acknowledge my limitations. One lesson I’ve learned over time is the value of hiring independent cultural consultants to help spot issues in manuscripts. It is an unfair burden on authors or illustrators to presume that any one person can act as spokesperson for an entire religion, tribe, or ethnic group. Too often those of us from majority culture perspectives look for the “single story” or the single perspective. Unfortunately, as others have observed, this can lead to simplistic representations and stereotypes in books that otherwise might have a lot to offer. Having a third-party cultural expert can facilitate conversations that go beyond the specifics of a manuscript and that can be vital to the success of the book.

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    In 2010, I began editing a picture book with Lee Francis, a member of the Penobscot tribe. Her manuscript was a tribute to a special uncle, a man renowned for his basket-making skills. Lee wanted to honor his work and write a contemporary depiction of life on Indian Island. As Lee and I talked about different illustration and design styles for the story, Jan Brett’s images for The Mitten came up. Lee was enthusiastic about its design and layout. Thinking I had Lee’s approval, I conferred with the illustrator Susan Drucker. Although Susan is not Native, she was very committed to the project and to getting as many of the cultural details of the story right as possible. Susan and I discussed the idea of using the sidebars to show kids how to make a basket. We traveled together to the Penobscot Reservation on Indian Island. With Lee as our guide, we took photos of the houses, the trees, and the workshops. For the next five months, Susan researched native basket-making techniques as part of her quest to make a beautifully detailed book.

    On a gray November day, Susan and I returned to Indian Island and met with Lee and Theresa Secord, the Director of the Maine Indian Basket Association. Theresa was the perfect cultural consultant for the book. We gathered in the tribal offices and Lee and Theresa carefully looked through Susan’s dummy of Kunu’s Basket. Susan and I eagerly awaited their reaction. We both hoped to see big smiles as payoff for Susan’s hard work. Theresa began the critique by asking Lee some questions about her uncle, and it quickly became clear that there were problems that needed attention. Theresa explained to us that although the drawings were well executed, and although she was appreciative of the efforts being made for cultural accuracy, the sidebar illustrations needed revision. Theresa’s mission is to preserve cultural integrity – and privacy. She explained that crafts people are vulnerable to imitators, and she worried that unscrupulous people might use Susan’s step-by-step illustrations to “rip off” their Native Culture. Lee was clearly in agreement with Theresa’s perspective. Susan and I were astonished and confused. Our original goal – to produce a culturally authentic story – had been met, but in the end, it appeared, a higher value needed to be followed. The story of Kunu’s basket could remain a story about a basket-making apprenticeship, but the details of how a traditional Penobscot Pack basket was built could not be featured in the sidebars or the end notes.

    As an illustrator, Susan was dismayed that her research and art would not be used. However, we both understood that the knowledge of basket-making was not ours to share. It was a twist we never could have anticipated, but the request was one that needed to be honored. Kunu’s Basket was published in 2012, and it was selected as part of the Reading Is Fundamental’s 2012/2013 STEAM Multicultural Collection and the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices in 2013.

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    Audrey Maynard has been Children’s Book Editor at Tilbury House for
    14 years. Before working as an editor, she taught young children in Oakland, New York City and in rural Maine.

  • The Lullaby Project

    The Lullaby Project for Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections, an outreach program that brings music to mothers in need, — in hospitals, shelters, prisons, and more  — provides new and expectant mothers with the chance to …

  • Dean Robbins and Lucy Knisley to Create Margaret and the Moon

    This book will profile a female software engineer named Margaret Hamilton, who developed code for the Apollo missions. Julia Maguire, an editor at Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, handled the acquisition. The …

  • Finalists Announced for the 2015 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature

    2015 Finalists: Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) Laura Ruby, Bone Gap (Balzer + Bray, a division of HarperCollins Children’s Books) Steve Sheinkin, Most Dangerous: …

  • #DrawingDiversity: 'My Two Blankets' by Irena Kobald, illustrations by Freya Blackwood





    My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald. Illustrations by Freya Blackwood. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2015). All rights reserved. @hmhkids

  • Submit for the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award

    Books are eligible in the following categories: Works for Younger Children (ages 0-12) and Works for Older Children (ages 13-18). All submissions must have a publication date of 2015. The deadline for submissions is …

  • The Launch of Read Quarterly

    With support from Neil Gaiman and other children’s book pioneers, TRQ has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the first issue.  The Read Quarterly will be a forum in which global …

  • James Patterson to Give Away Holiday Bonuses to Booksellers

    Patterson has partnered with the American Booksellers Association (ABA) on this undertaking. All employees who work at an ABA member bookshop will be considered eligible for a bonus. The organization …

  • Disney Publishing Worldwide to Launch a New Imprint Called Freeform

    The launch of this new venture will “coincide with the January 2016 re-branding of the Disney-owned cable TV channel, ABC Family.” The Freeform imprint list will feature “original book properties as …

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