A book and some quotes for Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day...

There are plenty of childrens' books about the environment.  One of the most interesting new ones is WORLD WITHOUT FISH by Mark Kurlansky (Workman Publishing, April 2011).

Part graphic novel, part history, part science, with section headings in a very large kid-friendly font, and lots of full-color illustrations throughout, this should appeal to today's internet-savvy readers.  Kurlansky touches on global warming, pollution, and overfishing as the three main culprits in why the coral reefs are dying.  He offers practical suggestions that kids themselves can follow.  A fun and painless way to learn.

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 And now for the quotes:

"Here's what an e-reader is: a battery-operated slab... one-half inch thick, perhaps with an aluminum border, rubberized back, plastic, metal, silicon, a bit of gold, plus rare metals such as columbite-tantalite (Google it) ripped from the earth, often in war-torn Africa. To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to refine the minerals and produce the battery and printed writing."

"Then you figure that the 100 million e-readers will be outmoded in short order, to be replaced by 100 million new and improved devices."

"Here's what it takes to make a book, which... will be shared by many readers and preserved and appreciated... recycled paper, a dash of minerals, and two gallons of water. Batteries not necessary. If trees are harvested, they can be replanted."

All of the above quotes are from a PW article, "Books Without Batteries: The Negative Impacts of Technology," by Bill Henderson, April 11, 2011.  

Henderson was summarizing a New York Times article from April 4, 2011.  According to that article, "OP CHART: How Green is My I-Pad," by Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris, "The adverse health impacts [on the general public] from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book."

(I urge you to click on the links and read the full articles.)

Still enjoy your e-reader?  Do you agree or disagree that e-readers are actually worse for the environment?

What Booksellers Wish Publishers Knew -- Picture Book edition

Welcome to another post in an occasional series in which a bookseller (that would be me) rants about the biz.  

Dear Publishers,

Picture books make great baby gifts.  Yes, you knew that already. Duh. That's one of the reasons you publish them.  But did you know that the hot new custom at baby showers is for everyone who attends the shower to bring a favorite book from their own childhood?

What does this mean?

This means I get plenty of customers (grandmothers. aunts, friends) who are looking for books they knew and loved decades ago.  Books that are hard to find.  Oh, it's all very well if your favorite childhood book was Goodnight Moon or Where the Wild Things Are.  But what if it was:

The Wonderful World of Aunt Tuddy, written by Jeremy Gury and illustrated by Hilary Knight (Random House, 1958).  I can still quote from this book.  Yes, I'm old.  Deal with it.

Or:

 

Not a Little Monkey, written by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Roger Duvoisin (Lothrop, 1957), for which I can't find an image (even on Charlotte's own website) except for this inferior 1989 reissue with a different illustrator.

Or:

The Busy Man and the Night-time Noises, which I believe was written by Vana Earl around 1954 and I can find no image at all.

These books?  Out of print.  Almost impossible to find or far too expensive on used book sites.  Could there be a market for inexpensive reissued editions of picture books (maybe even board book versions) from, oh, the baby boomer years? 

Just sayin'... 

Sincerely,
A bookseller


So, everyone else, what was YOUR favorite childhood picture book?  And is it still in print?

What Booksellers Wish Publishers Knew: Get a Spine!

It's an unfortunate part of the bookselling business that we can't face out every book.  There just isn't enough shelf space.  So we (and our customers) get used to looking at the books' spines.  Grabbing the book you need should be a piece of cake for a numbered series like Junie B. Jones.  Right?

 

But hold on a second.  

Let's take a closer look at those three red books in the middle:

They're not the same!  That's volume 5, The Yucky Blucky Fruitcake, followed by volume 6, That Meanie Jim's Birthday.  And they're just about the same color, so they're easily confused unless you take the time to look closely.  

Guardians of Ga'hoole provides us with another stellar example:

Again, let's look at that a little more closely:

Volumes 9, 10, AND 11: all the same color.  What was that designer thinking?

And don't even get me started on the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz. 

 These spines all look alike.

That's why we usually shelve them face out:

 

There.  That's better.  They look like different books this way!  Although it would be a big help to us if these books were numbered, like any other series.  I've had to resort to shelf talkers to tell customers which volume comes first.

Captain Underpants is another series that gives us shelving problems.  Why?  Well, it's not the colors blending together.  Each volume is a different bright color.  And the front cover tells you exactly which volume it is.  So what's the problem?

 

The spines!  

Naturally.  

The volume number is nowhere to be found on those spines.  Would it have been so hard to add a simple digit?

Hope you enjoyed this edition of What Booksellers Wish Publishers Knew. 

What irritates YOU in a bookstore?  Is the layout confusing?  Is it hard to tell where one age level ends and another begins?  Do you have trouble finding the book you want?

What Booksellers Wish Publishers Knew: Pop-Up Edition

Pop-up books can be intricate and entertaining.  Kids love grabbing and touching books anyway, so why not give them something interactive, where they can pull a tab or turn a page and a monster pops out or a castle opens up?

From Robert Sabuda's Beauty and the Beast

Try doing that on a Kindle!


The downside of pop-up books is that they fall apart.  If you think your kids are hard on pop-up books, guess what happens in a bookstore?  Aside from collectors, who usually know how to treat a book properly, customers by the hundreds open these works of art and play with them, and they're, well... a mess.

.

Our display copy of Star Wars A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy by Matthew Reinhart keeps bursting open.  Many of the pages are bent or torn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poor Cinderella won't even pop up anymore in this copy of Cinderella: A Pop up Fairy Tale by Matthew Reinhart.  In fact, I think she's about to lose her head!

And there's no way we can sell books that have suffered this kind of abuse.

My solution?   

Every pop-up book needs to come with a display copy.


Perfumes and lotions have testers.  Why not pop-up books?


Let customers open the display copy all they want. The copies for sale should be double-shrinkwrapped so they can't be ruined.  Sadly, only a handful of pop-ups, usually from the major publishers, come with an extra copy (at no charge to the bookstore) for display.  If there's no display copy, inevitably customers will ask me to open one. Or they'll just go ahead and help themselves. 


This DC Super Heroes pop-up came with its own cardboard stand and a free display copy -- and in a clever move, the publisher included sticky tape on the spine so it's a permanent part of the stand and can't be taken away.

What do you think?  Are pop-up books just for collectors?  Have you ever purchased a pop-up book?  Did your kids get enough enjoyment out of it before it fell apart?  And when e-readers become the norm, will pop-up books still be published?  Would you miss them if they weren't?

Titles I'd Like to See

Titles and brief reviews of three books I'm sure will never be published:

Tattle Tails

Revealed at last: the deepest, darkest secrets of picture book characters!  What are those scandalous creatures up to?  Learn all the inside scoop on who has something to hide, including:
  
Olivia shipped off to fat farm!!  

The Hungry Caterpillar's binge and purge routine!

Why is Fancy Nancy hiding behind those sunglasses?  
Is rehab next?

Is Pinkalicious really a porn star???  Her parents' secret shame!

"I am Curious George/yellow; I am Curious George/blue"  --  Ever wonder why some Curious George books are yellow

 and some are blue?  

 





 This book reveals the shocking truth!!  Guaranteed to knock your socks off!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *    *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

 The Annotated Guide to Celebrity Picture Books:

The Definitive Edition

Learn the hidden meanings and deep philosophical truths behind such timeless classics as If Roast Beef Could Fly by Jay Leno, The English Roses by Madonna,  Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet Panda by Fran Liebowitz, High in the Clouds by Paul McCartney, Jag by LeAnn Rimes, and much much more!  The spiritual concepts behind these books are explained in detail, along with the logic paradoxes and quantum physics underlying the plot and themes of these complicated volumes.

This lengthy and scholarly tome also delves into the origins of each of these wonderful stories. Discover how these gems came to be! Historical context is explained. Includes footnotes, original drafts of each book, editing notes, correspondence between the author and editor, second drafts final drafts, Swiss bank accounts author contracts.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   * 

They Came From Beyond the Grave

"Dead men (or women) tell no tales."  

Or do they?

Richard Scarry, Dr. Seuss,  H.A. Rey, Margaret Wise Brown, Shel Silverstein, 

Roald Dahl, Matt Christopher, V.C. Andrews  -- their books just keep selling and selling and selling.  And they're all DEAD.  Kinda sends chills up your spine, doesn't it?


But there's more!  As gruesome as it sounds, sometimes NEW titles magically appear in bookstores and libraries, even though the author's been dead for YEARS.  Gertrude Chandler Warner wrote 19 Boxcar Children books and then died in 1979.  So what's with the other 101 102 103 104 105 106?

What funny titles can YOU come up with? And did I miss any dead children's authors who are still selling?


Reminder: My giveaway goes until 11:59 pm EST on Sunday January 23.  Only a few days left to enter! 

What booksellers wish publishers knew

This may become a regular feature on the blog because I have a lot of pet peeves about the publishing industry. Like why those cardboard display dumps never lock in properly and always end up falling over.  And why pop-up books are the bane of a bookseller's existence.

But right now I want to talk about holiday gifts.  Yes, it's that time of year (and I'm sorry I just missed saying Happy Hanukkah to everyone who celebrates that holiday -- hope it was great!).  The bookstore where I work is in a mid-size Pennsylvania town, not a big city, and most of our customers tend to be grandparents buying books for their grandchildren, so a NYC editor may not be thinking along the same lines.  But here's my problem:

DARK, VIOLENT BOOKS 

DO NOT MAKE GOOD HOLIDAY GIFTS!

They may be fantastic reads.  Look at The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff, for instance, which is on my TBR pile and has gotten lots of good buzz.  Or look at You by Charles Benoit.  The latter blew me away.  Talk about compelling.  Reading You is like watching a car accident happen in slow motion. You're fascinated and you can't turn away. 

But does it make a good Christmas gift?  Hell, no!  Not to a sweet little old lady looking for something for her 14-year-old grandson.

And Paranormalcy by Kiersten White is one of the funniest, sexiest (without being raunchy) YA novels I've read this year.

I've tried to handsell it to plenty of people this month, to no avail.  Why? The cover makes it LOOK dark and scary.  If it had a brighter, lighter cover (think of something Evie uses that's pink with rhinestones), I'd probably have sold dozens. Grandmas want something that looks sweet, like Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski.

And then I have a related problem.  There's a wonderful, inspiring book called The Running Dream (which I reviewed here).  It would make a great gift for any tween or teen girl.

But it pubs in January. 

January!  This is useless to me when I'm recommending Christmas or Hanukkah gifts for people.

When will publishers start listening to booksellers, the people in the front lines?  Humph. 

Okay, I'll get down off my soapbox now and stop acting like Scrooge. 

A hearty welcome to my new followers.  I'm glad you're here.  And I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, or Winter Solstice, or whatever you celebrate.  The next two weeks will be my busiest at work, so I may not post as often (although I hope to be back on Monday with a hilarious MMGM recommendation).

What about you?  Anything in the publishing industry you want to rant about?

Those Chewing Children

Bookseller rant of the week:

What on earth makes people think it's okay to bring toddlers into the children's department of a bookstore and let them and their new teeth loose on the toys and books?

At least I'm not the only person who grumbles about this. Eugenia Williamson of The Boston Phoenix started her October 13th article about careers in the book industry with this wonderful quote:

"Some people visit bookstores so their children can chew objects outside the home."

Yay, Eugenia!  Your sarcasm hit the nail on the head.


This definitely calls for Teeth Are Not For Biting -- a board book by Elizabeth Verdick, published in 2003 by Free Spirit Press.  Other titles in the series include Feet Are Not For Kicking and Germs Are Not For Sharing, also by Verdick, and Hands Are Not For Hitting, by Martine Agassi.

Have you noticed a distinct lack of manners among little kids these days? Do you think books like this help, or do you think parents need to step up?

Children's books that hang around forever

Well, since no one guessed the answer in my last post, I'll give you another hint. It's a picture book.

And to repeat what started this little contest, I had a customer recently who came up to me with this conundrum:

"I'm looking for that kids' book. You know the one I mean."

and oddly enough I did know the one she meant. If you're the first person to guess which book it was, you'll win a prize (your choice of certain ARCs for Spring 2010).

Happy guessing.

Actual Customer Quotes

I'm not trying to insult anyone here. So no names, dates or other clues will be used. But just so you have some indication of why booksellers sometimes want to tear their hair out, these are actual customer quotes from the past few months in the bookstore where I work.

"I'm looking for a kids' book and I don't know the author or the title but it has a blue cover."

"Is this the price that it says it is?"


And last but certainly not least:

"I'm looking for that kids' book. You know the one I mean."


The strange thing was, I did know the one she meant. Clearly, either the brain aneurysm made me psychic or I'm the perfect person for this job.

A prize will be awarded to whoever guesses the title of that last request.