More paperback picturebooks? Please?

Genuine question, oh friends in various literary places: why aren't more picturebooks available in paperback? In virtually every other category of kidlit (excluding graphic novels and, obviously, board books and novelty books), the majority of books come out in hardcover first, but then come to paperback about a year later unless they're by Suzanne Collins or John Green phenomenally popular. But picturebooks aren't nearly as predictable. I don't know the percentage that are available in paperback, but I'd guess it's far less than half of those that have been out in hardcover for more than a year. Major classics - Goodnight Moon, Madeleine, Where the Wild Things Are - generally are available, and there are certain older authors who are paperback standbys - William Steig and Ezra Jack Keats come to mind. But newer backlist books are much less frequently available. (Anecdotally, Candlewick's books seem to be the major exception.)

I understand why in many cases, a hardcover is preferable. If a book aimed at readers under six is going to live in a school, a library, or even a home containing particularly destructive little hands, it needs to be sturdy. But there's a big difference between a two-year-old who's just learning how to treat books and a four- or five-year-old who should know better. If the parents of a toddler want to provide books in the home, it's relatively easy to do so; small board books run about seven or eight dollars. (All prices estimated here are original list prices.) But once that toddler ages into picturebooks, the selection around the same price gets narrow. It's a fairly common occurrence for a parent or gift buyer to wax enthusiastic about a hardcover picturebook until he or she sees the price, and then it's, "Eighteen dollars for ten pages?!?" (I avoid nitpicking on those occasions; to point out that it's actually thirty-two pages might come off as pushy.)

Remember that uproar a few years ago about the supposed death of the picturebook? Faulty though its premise may have been, if it was going to lament losses in picturebook sales (especially in 2010), why not examine the cost of picturebooks? Leveled readers, the next "step up" from picturebooks, are very often paperback originals and tend to cost four or five dollars. Most early chapter books either start out in paperback or get there soon enough; typically, we're talking six or seven bucks. Perhaps a push toward accelerated reading isn't the only reason Mom or Dad wheedles, "wouldn't you rather have this book?"

Publishers, my humble take: Keep printing those hardcovers. They make great, long-lasting gifts. Keep making those e-books, too; there's nothing sweeter than the dad I keep seeing on the bus who reads Curious George to his kids on a tablet. But please, don't forget the kids whose parents will rarely if ever bring home an eighteen-dollar picture book.

You might just see sales go up.

Home is where my books are

I've never thought of myself as a book-as-object person. I'm a reader of physical books, certainly, but I'm not the type to buy many books for myself, even if they're pretty editions or first printings of award winners or books that I've loved but only borrowed. I don't actually own books 2 through 5 of Harry Potter. The first Shel Silverstein collection I owned was a Where the Sidewalk Ends I got as a gift in college.

As many of you know, I'm preparing to move locally in the near future. (We're still looking for a place; we have some time and some prospects; you'll notice I'm spending time in the interim among comforting books.) I've amassed a lot of books in the past few years, many of them ARCs, and a lot of what I've read is being brought to the nearest donation bin, from which I sincerely hope it will find new readers who enjoy it. But as I root through my shelves (god, I'll miss the built-in bookshelves), I find myself lingering among the books that are not going anywhere except my new home, where-exactly-ever that turns out to be.

If you're at all surprised these are staying with me, nice to meet you. Welcome to Walk the Ridgepole.

All read in childhood, all far more than once, most also read in adulthood. The first chapter book I read on my own by choice was that copy of All of a Kind Family. That copy of The Devil's Arithmetic informed my views of Holocaust books as recent as Rose Under Fire. That copy of Cheaper by the Dozen smells like vanilla.

This 1927 printing of Eight Cousins, photographed very carefully, belonged to my late great Aunt Louella, a sweet lady who apparently enjoyed Alcott.

The bookplate on the left is my mom's, but I apparently felt the need to mark this copy as my own.

Don't put a bottle of orange juice in your bag at a conference, even if you think it's securely closed. Unless you want a really unique inscription from the keynote speaker.

Yes, that is a genuine Hanklerfish.

Signed first printing. Because when you know the author, that's how you roll.

This really just skims the surface (I will not picspam for every author event I've been lucky enough to attend), and it omits many books that are still in my parents' house. I own three editions of The Princess Bride, two of them wonderful recent gifts, but the family heirloom edition, complete with "reunion scene" letter from the '70s, was in no shape to travel. On a related note, if any archivist-type friends have tips for transporting old books, those would be welcome.

Maybe I'm not a book-as-object person, but a book-as-Receiver-of-Memory person? I am definitely that.

This wasn't my childhood copy, but it is the copy I will pull out to support my thoughts on the movie this summer.

But everyone knows Hermione belonged with Luna

It's been all over the children's lit websites. The publishing-industry media. The Muggle newspapers, and probably the Daily Prophet. J.K. Rowling regrets the Ron-Hermione pairing and thinks Hermione would've been better off with Harry.

(This post assumes that spoiler warnings for the Harry Potter series are, at this point, irrelevant.)

At first, the ship heard 'round the world sounded like another "Dumbledore is gay," but I realized quickly that this is something different, something even less powerful. The earlier revelation claimed that it had always been part of the HP universe's truth, just not overtly mentioned. It invited lots of "you don't get to say that now" objections, quite a few of them followed closely with "but why didn't you say it earlier?" And it would've been an amazing case of what I'm now seeing referred to as casual diversity if the series had contained an offhand mention of Dumbledore's orientation (more amazing for its not-that-long-ago time than it would be today). More focus on it than that would've been fascinating. Would Slytherins have been homophobic? Would the Ministry of Magic? Come on, J.K. of ten years ago, you were getting banned anyway. The after-the-fact announcement was something, but inclusion in the canon would've been something much stronger.

And this Hermione Steals Ginny's Man thing? I get why people are upset. If anything, I feel badly on poor underdog Ron's behalf. Harry gets everything; why shouldn't Ron get the brightest witch of her age? (I disagree with claims that Ginny lacks personality - the girl conjures a mean bat bogey hex, and she knows when to use it - but she's not exactly in the running for Ron.) What I think JK may not understand is that Hermione's choice of spouse isn't the major reason so many people were disappointed in the epilogue to Deathly Hallows. The romantic relationships in the series were sweet (and sometimes unintentionally awkward; who here didn't cringe at the monster in Harry's chest?), but they weren't the most important part of the story. So much of the anticipation for Book 7 was about finally finding things out, and the epilogue contained virtually no surprises. (Albus Severus. Cute concept. Poor kid.) Once we knew who lived, who died, who was good, who was evil, and who was Snape, we (okay, at least I) wanted to know what contributions these characters would make to the wizarding world as adults. Was Harry an Auror? Was Ron? What was a lone Weasley twin like? JKR answered some questions about the characters' career choices in interviews that got less attention than Dumbledore's sexuality, but I'd've loved to see the interesting stuff play out on the page, where it belonged.  As others have said, who Hermione married can't have been the most interesting thing about her life after Hogwarts.

One thing that disappointed many in the world of fandom about the epilogue was that it paired off so many of the characters in traditional couples. In fandom's imagination, many of the characters were gayer than a Grindelwald (was Grindelwald gay?). To have the author come out of the woodwork to say that after seven years, what bothers her about the series is that Hermione married one guy rather than another guy feels heteronormative.

It sounds like JKR has personal reasons for her change of heart, and that's the great thing about fan fiction. Anyone can write an alternate universe fic and make the story work for him or her; JKR basically just did that in interview format. But if she does that, or Cath Avery does that, or anyone else does that, all it does is allow for interesting speculation. It doesn't change what "really" happened.

Holy partially anticipated occurrences!

First things first. In one truly unanticipated occurrence, that creepy adult-eyed look at youth The Ocean at the End of the Lane did not win an Alex Award. As promised, I am about to eat a bug.

I'm glad to have just learned that spider-shaped  fruit snacks are tastier than they sound, because I own a box of them now.  But they don't rival the deliciousness of the Newberys-and-blueberries ritual I've carried out since a 2009 brunch at the home of several Simmons classmates. This year, in the bowels of the bookstore, I popped blueberries like a moviegoer pops popcorn as I stared, riveted, at the Twitter ticker at the bottom of the ALA website, sorted through the reactions to weed out the new information, and rushed to plug titles and suggested quantities into a Google doc for the intrepid buyer across from me. (Note to ALA: if you tweeted Honor books in addition to Medalists, those of us hoping to order the books could do so more efficiently.) (Note to self: Twitter did not exist in 1922, and booksellers managed.)

It speaks to the strength of this year that the only big surprises, to my mind, were in what didn't win anything. There were no moments of "Seriously? That won?" (There were a few moments of "Okay, add that to the TBR list," but there's always some of that.) I'm super-excited about Flora and Ulysses, and the appropriately grandiose Locomotive should be held up next to The Stinky Cheese Man as an example of why book design matters. I'll admit I'm rethinking the idea of a Caldecott-based story time; three wordless Honor books and a very wordy Medalist might not be the most practical combination. But I'll happily handsell all of the above; Journey in particular is a staff favorite.

Other thoughts:
I need to read Midwinterblood.
We had Navigating Early shelved in Intermediate next to Moon Over Manifest, as I imagine many stores and libraries did (or still do), but I'd been recommending it as a transitional book. And now here it is with a Printz Honor... let's try it in YA!
Hooray The Year of Billy Miller! Hooray P.S. Be Eleven! And the completely un-shocking Nelson Mandela! Ditto Eleanor and Park! And Better Nate Than Ever!

If anyone's looking for me, I'll be catching up on the winners I've missed. And probably eating Spiderman fruit snacks.

 

Other awards: a round-up

Lemony Snicket has won the Charlotte Zolotow Award for The Dark. I'm always glad this award for writing in a picture book exists. The Caldecott recognizes illustration, which is one important aspect of picture books, but illustrations alone do not a picture book make. (Except when they do, and I'm sure there's been a debate at some point about whether a well-plotted wordless picture book could win the CZA.) In any case, I wonder how that kid in the All the Wrong Questions books would feel about the accolades in his future.

Aline Sax and Caryl Strzelecki have won the National Jewish Book Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature for The War Within These Walls. The Sydney Taylor Book Award for Younger Readers goes to The Longest Night:A Passover Story by Laurel Snyder; for Older Readers, to The Blessing Cup by Patricia Polacco; and for Teen Readers, to The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi. A good mix, and I'm glad The Blessing Cup wasn't judged by its picture book-sized cover.

The Edgar Awards have announced their nominees, and I'm pleased to see that there's both a Juvenile and a Young Adult category. Also, that's officially enough buzz that All the Truth That's in Me is now on my library-hold list.

Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill has won the Scott O'Dell Award. I hadn't known much about this one, but it looks like a good (if decades-later) read-alike for the Little House books.

And of course, the National Book Award is old news by now, but I'm happy to see The Thing About Luck getting so much attention.

What did I miss?

Since we've just been introduced, I'll call it SLJRoBERT.

The Contender list is out for School Library Journal's 2014 Battle of the Books! We'll be on a nickname basis soon, but for now, I'll address BoB formally as Rehashing of Brilliant, Esteemed, Renowned Tomes.

I love that this list gets announced before the ALA winners do. The odds are high that some major award winners are on this list, but we don't know that for sure, and "hey, it won the Newbery" will at most be just one of some Contender's vital stats. (I'm still pulling for a Newbery for Counting by Sevens, which coulda been a Contender. And I think it's one of many strong Printz candidates, but I admit it would be fun to see how people described Reality Boy's premise if it won.)

This SLJBoB list shows exactly why I'm hesitant to make more concrete award predictions: 2013 was a strong and varied year. Just look at these contenders, virtually all of which have received serious mock Newbery and/or Printz attention. We have here a slim volume of emotion-encapsulating poetry and a semigraphic novel about a poetry-typing squirrel. We have two sequels that cover very different ground from their predecessors, which is exactly what makes them interesting. We have graphic novels set during China's Boxer Rebellion and America's Civil Rights Movement, and prose fiction set in the 1980s, in a village that might be in colonial America, and in the space between childhood and adolescence. We have animal factoids and arguments with a grandmother. In short, we have a lot of choices that are distinguished in very different ways, and my hat is off to the committees that will have to choose among them.

But I'm still planning to eat a bug, or possibly several metaphorical bugs in the form of ants on a log, if The Ocean at the End of the Lane doesn't win an Alex.

Thou shalt read.

Just before we graduated from Simmons, I got to read an early draft of a novel about a girl with the Troubles. Gloria Jean's diagnosis of celiac disease brought on some kissing concerns; who wants to worry about what her partner has been chewing? But Gloria Jean also had some less typically-YA worries. If she couldn't have gluten, how could she take Communion?

That draft has since become Ten Commandments for Kissing Gloria Jean, by Britt Leigh, now out from Pauline Books and Media. I've seen the humor, thoughtfulness, and YA moxie that went into this novel, and I can't wait to read the final product. Happy book birthweek, Britt!