Home > Blog > Year: 2015

Year: 2015

  • The CBC Partners with the unPrison Project to Build Prison-Nursery Libraries for Incarcerated Mothers and Their Babies

    BRAND-NEW LIBRARIES TO BE CREATED IN HONOR OF MOTHER’S DAY ON MAY 10, WHICH FALLS DURING CHILDREN’S BOOK WEEK 2015 New York, NY — April 23, 2015 –In honor of …

  • Jon Scieszka on Connecting with Reluctant Readers

    In addition to grabbing readers with his unusual characters and signature humor, Scieszka edits anthologies for Guys Read, the online literacy program for boys which he founded. I’m always looking …

  • Jacqueline Woodson On Why She Used Poetry to Share Her Childhood Stories

    This book features a collection of poems that paints vignettes from Woodson’s childhood. For her, poetry was the best way to share these biographical stories. She explained that “memory doesn’t …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Kate DiCamillo

    Here’s a heartfelt line from National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo’s Flora & Ulysses (Candlewick Press, 2014): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote …

  • 2015 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award Winners Honored

    The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation in partnership with the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at The University of Southern Mississippi has announced the winners of the 29th annual Ezra Jack …

  • #MathicalBooks Social Media Contest – Starts April 28!

    What is Mathical: Books for Kids from Tots to Teens?Books can be a fantastic way to get kids of all ages excited and interested in math. Now, there’s a new …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Gene Luen Yang

    Overcome obstacles with this line from Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel The Shadow Hero (First Second/Macmillan, 2014): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances …

  • Authors for Earth Day

    Participants mentor young readers by giving them “an authentic research project with real-world impact.” At least 30% of their speaking fee is donated to a non-profit conservation organization selected by …

  • New Edition of Teaching Resource for K–8 Math Answers Questions Teachers Are Asking

    New York, NY — About Teaching Mathematics, an influential professional development book for K–8 math teachers, is now available in its fourth edition. The author, one of today’s most highly respected …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Louise Fitzhugh

    Here’s a piece of unforgettable wisdom from Louise Fitzhugh’s middle-grade classic Harriet the Spy (Random House Children’s, 1964): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: …

  • Winners Announced For The 2015 Indies Choice and E.B. White Award Winners

    INDIES CHOICE YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE YEAR The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) E.B. WHITE READ-ALOUD AWARD – MIDDLE READER …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: David Levithan

    Open your heart to this quote from David Levithan’s The Realm of Possibility (Knopf/Random House Children’s Books, 2006): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Jenny Han

    Celebrate unexpected beauty with this line from Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty (Simon & Schuster, 2010): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: …

  • Announcing the Inaugural Mathical List

    The selection panel featured mathematicians, teachers, librarians, early childhood experts, and others. Together they evaluated books of all kinds, from picture books and novels to narrative nonfiction, that foster an …

  • Founder of TOON Books Françoise Mouly on Comics and Visual Literacy

    After moving to the United States from Paris in 1974, Mouly began reading comics as a way of absorbing the language. Comics offered her a kind of cultural and emotional …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: E.B. White

    Discover words of friendship in E.B. White’s beloved classic Charlotte’s Web (HarperCollins Children’s, 1952) See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances Hodgson Burnett, A …

  • 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian' Was The Most Frequently Challeneged Book of 2014

    Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian came in at number one. This National Book Award-winning young adult novel first appeared on the 2010 edition of this …

  • How I Got into Publishing

    Publicist at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Saga Press

    When I was looking for my first job, I’d ask as many people as I could how they got their start in publishing. I would collect stories from internship mentors, interviewers, people I met at networking events, whoever, in exchange for bright-eyed enthusiasm. As I found out, there’s no single path to publishing, but rather a network full of detours, twists, and forks that make up our small (yes, small) publishing village.

    On the surface, my path seems straightforward. My junior year at Columbia, I joined my college’s alumna mentor program as I began pondering life after college. Since I specified that I was interested in publishing, I was matched with the excellent and wonderful Juliet Grames, now associate publisher of Soho Press. Juliet was invaluable to me. At her advice, I did three internships before graduating in 2010: at an agency, in children’s editorial, and in adult trade marketing. She introduced me to other people in publishing, and I lived in her spare bedroom in Harlem while job-hunting in New York.

    After graduation, I laid out my plan for intense networking: interviews both informational and professional, panels, coffee dates, lunch dates, Kid Lit Drink Nights and KGB Fantastic Fiction Nights, basically anywhere I knew publishing people would be. Five months later, I began working as a publicity assistant at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 

    But even on my networking-heavy path, there were divergences. Though I had loved books all my life, I didn’t even consider publishing a career possibility until I met Juliet. My Chinese immigrant parents had always encouraged me to go into a technical field, and for my first two years at Columbia I’d majored in environmental engineering. When I’d transferred to anthropology, I was met with confusion and anxiety. Less “What is anthropology?” and more “Can you get a job with that degree?”

    Chastened but not surprised by this response, I decided to write my undergraduate thesis on books and the transformative power of reading and libraries in immigrant communities. Yes, I thought, I will use academia to validate my personal choices. I learned about Pierre Bourdieu’s forms of capital: cultural, social, and economic.

    • I learned that I had a fairly good base of cultural capital, combining the values of education and a hard work ethic I’d learned from my parents with the the knowledge and worldviews I’d gained from voraciously reading books.
    • Financially, my parents had dragged themselves out of poverty into a comfortable suburban life in New Jersey, and had saved enough to send me to college without loans, so I considered myself lucky on that front, too.
    • As for social capital, well–that’s where the networking came in.

    Looking back, I’m keenly aware of the opportunities I had as a Chinese-American woman–and the hiccups I had to overcome. A love of books is not enough to work in publishing. Some candidates can’t afford to accept an unpaid internship to get their foot in the door, let alone three. Some need to consider higher paying industries to pay off their loans or take care of their families. Others don’t live near New York, or have any publishing companies near them. And some, like me, never knew what publishing was until the “aha” moment when I realized that people worked to make this book I was holding in my hands. And these reasons are inseparably tied to diversity of race, ethnicity, class, geography, and more.

    I am the sum of my acquired experiences by learning, reading, and talking to others. I keep an open mind about others’ paths–whether they came to publishing later in life, or after working in another industry, or moved from rural Missouri–knowing each one is equally valid and worthy. Through the efforts of CBC Diversity and a focus on diverse recruitment, I hope that publishing village turns into a metropolis.

    Faye Bi works as a publicist at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Saga Press. She tweets at @faye_bi.

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: E. Lockhart

    A call for compassion in E. Lockhart’s suspenseful page-turner We Were Liars (Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s, 2014): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances …

  • Five Questions with Kids' Comics Authors

    Comics for kids are reaching a time of unprecedented acceptance in the American literary scene, and it’s now true that there are comics for everyone. (Mac Teen Books) Throughout April …

Back to Top