Member Benefits

Summary of membership benefits and contact details for U.S. and Canadian children’s book publishers interested in joining the Children’s Book Council.

The Children’s Book Council (CBC) is the nonprofit trade organization of U.S. and Canadian children’s book publishers.

The CBC has two distinct audiences: 1) publishing house employees and their authors and illustrators, and 2) teachers, librarians, and booksellers, and the millions of young people they inspire every day.

Our goal is to serve your needs and interests by:

making diversity in all ways our top priority in all our programming
featuring your books in our prestigious and popular national programs
putting your authors and illustrators in the spotlight
managing significant national book awards
partnering with prominent organizations
providing free resource materials to teachers, librarians, and booksellers
conducting forums for ongoing publishing professional development

Our programs are rooted in decades of experience while continuing to grow our programming in terms of scope, diversity, and outreach — all in support of your book creators, books, publishing colleagues across all departments, and teachers, librarians, and booksellers coast to coast.

A Top Ten of what membership offers.

Promote your new books on our website in CBC’s monthly Hot off the Press, our themed quarterly CBC Showcase, and our weekly themed blog posts.
Submit your new books to be read in a diverse array of schools and libraries in order to create the national CBC FAVORITES awards, our most popular annual program—with voting by children, teens, teachers, and librarians.
Submit your books for expertly curated Best STEM, Outstanding Science, and Notable Social Studies annual book awards.
Access to additional CBC awards and lists from our partners, which include the annual Social Justice, Anna Dewdney Read Together, Mathical, and Children’s Poetry awards.
Your employees have member-only opportunities for CBC-sponsored networking and mentorship within the industry.
Your employees can attend the CBC member-only Ed. Talks, a monthly virtual panel series about industry trends and topics for professional development.
As a new member, your publishing house will be highlighted in our new Publisher Profile series.
Benefit from CBC’s strong relationships with the ABA, ALA, PW, SLJ, First Book, the Library of Congress, and others on essential topics and challenges of our industry. For example, the CBC is heavily involved in the fight against book banning.
ALL of the programs listed above come with national press releases and energetic social media campaigns.
After a year of membership, CBC members can also participate in Every Child a Reader’s national literacy programs:

Children’s Book Week, celebrating 105 years in 2024, with local author engagement.
Get Caught Reading, a classroom and library poster program featuring authors, illustrators, and community leaders.

The CBC is leading and helping grow a vibrant and diverse children’s publishing industry by continuously evolving and expanding our programs and partnerships. We hope you’ll join us.

Please contact Carl Lennertz and Laura Peraza with any questions and more details about the benefits of CBC membership. Thank you for your interest in our work.