Latest News in Children's Book Publishing

March 2013

Book Expo America (BEA) Announces 2013

BEA has announced the books to be featured on the convention's three "buzz" book panels for adult, young adult, and middle grade books. Convention will take place at the end of May 2013.  During the Children’s Book and Author Breakfast, Octavia Spencer will serve as Master of Ceremonies. Rick Riordan, Mary Pope Osborn, and Veronica Roth will also be at this event.

Children's Book & Author Breakfast

8:00 am - 9:30 am
Special Events Hall

Octavia Spencer Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective: The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (October 15, 2013)	Mary Pope Osborne Magic Tricks from the Tree House Random House Books for Young Readers (July 23, 2013) - - - - - - - - - Magic Tree House #50: Hurry Up, Houdini! Random House Books for Young Readers (July 23, 2013)	Rick Riordan The Heroes of Olympus, Book Four: The House of Hades Disney-Hyperion (October 8, 2013)	Veronica Roth Divergent: Book III Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Children's Books (Fall 2013)

BUZZ BOOKS!!

Adult
All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior (Ecco, January 2014)
Knocking on Heavens Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler (Scribner, September)
Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink (Crown, August)
The Affairs of Others: A Novel by Amy Grace Loyd (Picador, August)
Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower (HMH, October)
The Facades by Eric Lundgren (Overlook, September)

Young Adult
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (St. Martin's Griffin, September)
Tandem by Anna Jarzab (Delacorte, October)
All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill (Hyperion, September)
Entangled by Amy Rose Capetta (HMH Children's, October)
If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan (Algonquin Books for Young Readers, August)

Middle Grade
A Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates #1: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline   Carlson (HarperCollins, September)
Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Dial, September)
The Fantastic Family Whipple by Matthew Ward (Razorbill, August)
Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab by Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith (Quirk, November)
The Time Fetch by Amy Herrick (Algonquin Books for Young Readers, August)

Awards

Finalists announced for the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.  The winner will be announced on March 19, and the 33rd Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ceremony & Dinner will be held on Saturday, May 4 at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens.^[1] The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000.The finalists are:

Amelia Gray, Threats (Farrar, Straus)
Laird Hunt, Kind One (Coffee House Press)
T. Geronimo Johnson, Hold it 'Til It Hurts (Coffee House Press)
Thomas Mallon, Watergate (Pantheon)
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Everything Begins & Ends at the Kentucky Club (Cinco Puntos Press)

Barnes & Noble also announced the winners of their annual Discover Awards:

Fiction: Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist (Harper)
Nonfiction: Cheryl Strayed, Wild (Knopf)

People

Simon and Schuster UK Children's has appointed Elv Moody as the new editorial director for children's fiction, starting in early June. She is currently editorial director at Puffin UK.

At HMH Children's, Mary Wilcox has been promoted to the newly-created position of vp, editor in chief.  In addition,  Adah Nuchi has been promoted to associate editor.

News from Writers House:

Writers House announced that Geri Thoma and Lisa DiMona have joined the agency. “Thoma, who joins on March 18, was previously partner at Markson Thoma, while DiMona, who will start on April 8, was founder and sole proprietor of Lark Productions, a literary agency and book development company established in 1998. "We are delighted that Geri and Lisa are joining our growing team of agents. Their expertise in nonfiction will complement our list and enlarge the scope of the agency," said Writers House chairman Amy Berkower in a statement. In addition, Stephen Barr was recently promoted to senior agent, while Brianne Johnson moves up to agent”.

Business:

The Wallstreet Journal reveals that Len Riggio plans to buy Barnes and Noble.  Per the Journal, Riggo, "notified the board...he plans to propose to purchase all of the assets of the retail business"--comprising the BN superstores, and the BN.com web site. "Riggio plans to make the proposal in order to facilitate the company's evaluation of its previously announced review of strategic options for the separation of its investment in Nook Media."

Eye Candy from Molly Idle

Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle offers a beautiful way to introduce your child to the art and dance of friendship.  Due out from Chronicle Books in February, this wordless book is gorgeous enough to decorate the walls of a princess's bedroom. I wouldn't be surprised if Land of Nod or Pottery Barn Kids wanted to offer Flora decor in the future.  But for now, Flora and the Flamingo is pure eye candy as well as the celebration of building friendships.

• ISBN-13: 9781452110066
• Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
• Publication date: 2/7/2013
• Pages: 44

Book trailer:

The Future of Us: Hagen Daz at Carrot Calories

THE FUTURE OF US: Review by Kim Tomsic         

         It's a book that offers two for the price of one! The Future of Us by Carolyn Mackler and Jay Asher will capture your imagination within nanoseconds. You couldn't possibly expect anything less; Mackler and Asher are two of YA’s best authors. Smoosh together The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things with Thirteen Reasons Why and the result is crafty innovation--The Future of Us.

      

Jacket flap: It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.

By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present

     Enjoying Mackler and Asher’s combined talent is like paying for an iPad and getting a free iPhone thrown in the mix; it’s like eating Hagen Daz plus crème brulee at the cost of carrot calories; it’s like paying for Ramada, but staying at the Four Seasons. You get my point.

The Future of Us is told in two alternating first person points of view: high school juniors Emma and Josh. Furthermore it’s told in the unusual format of present tense, which makes the stakes feel high. 
Many plot points keep the pages turning in this exciting book--for example there's the nostalgal of life before texting, before caller ID and before Pluto was axed off the list of planets. There's also the thrilling side of the book when readers conjure the heap of possibilities in their own life, possibilities that could be if glimpsing the future was possible.

The Future of Us, written by two award winning SCBWI members,  is a must read and easily earns a five out of five lollipop rating.

Available at:

Tattered Cover

Boulder Books

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

ISBN-10: 1595144919
ISBN-13: 9781595144911
Published: Razorbill, 11/21/2011

Daemons in the Mist - A Book Review

"Seventeen year old Patrick Connolly has been drawn to Nualla ever since he first saw her, but as the years pass she seems to take absolutely no notice of him. Until, that is, he rescues her from a confrontation in the school hallway. Little does he know that he’s about to be thrust into a world of life altering secrets and things that shouldn’t exist, because the fog and mist of San Francisco is concealing more than just buildings."

DAEMONS IN THE MIST by author/illustrator Alicia Kat Dillmn, is a story that takes you on a journey where human and Daemon worlds collide. The opening scene takes place at a prep school in San Francisco. Think TWILIGHT, but replace vampires with daemons.  The story is packed with plot, adventure, sexual tension, and many clever twists and turns.

Daemons in the Mist is YA paranormal romance / urban fantasy cleverly presented from two first-person POVs, high school seniors Patrick and Nualla.

Patrick lives an ordinary life. He has decent grades, a small circle of friends, and parents who neglect him. His crush, Nualla, doesn’t know he exists until a bizarre encounter at school develops and she curiously acknowledges him for the first time.

Nualla lives an extraordinary life. She is beautiful, wealthy, and a Kalodaemon princess. She presents herself as human, but is truly Kalodaemon through and through. This means she’s a “good daemon, like an angel. [Kaladaemon’s] influence humans to aspire to greatness, but are not unfailingly virtuous.”

The Positives: Voice, humor, setting, pacing, characters, plot, intrigue.

The Drawbacks: Gratuitous drinking, gratuitous cussing and a bothersome use of punctuation.

Drawback: I'll get this out of the way first, because the positive is where I want to leave the focus. The biggest drawback I found in the story is the level of gratuitous drinking. The amount of alcohol consumption in this story doesn’t match the plot or contribute to the storyline. It fit in the opening scene, but afterwards it could have been axed or made as simple background noise. Furthermore, Patrick is a skinny, 5’11” boy without a lot of experience with alcohol. In the opening scene (and possibly at Skye’s club) it’s unbelievable that he could quickly consume at least six shots (and then some) without experiencing alcohol poisoning—the level of oxygenated blood would have depleted to dangerous levels when matched to the rate of the shots they took. It’s irresponsible to let YA readers think otherwise. There are other references to alcohol throughout the book promoting drinking as cool (like you can join us if you drink). I found it surprising toward the end when Patrick uses alcohol in attempt to stop his headaches. It seemed he had moved to full on addict mode, but nothing gets developed on this point. I’m certainly not against exposing the reality of teens and drinking.  It either happens in the background of a story, or it develops as a central theme. When liquor is used as a big point in a story, it fits because it adds to the plot or the character arc. In John Green’s YA fiction LOOKING FOR ALASKA, it worked with the character, plot and set of circumstances.   

POSITIVES: The positives of this story outshine the few minuses named above. Author Alicia Kat Dillman is a master at painting a beautiful scene. Her words perfectly capture an eerie and magical feel for the San Francisco mists. Furthermore, Dillman does a great job with world building and effortlessly collides the ordinary human world with the daemon world. I found it entertaining that the daemon world is created with a great super-geek genius level of technology, yet they still have an annoying level of bureaucratic red tape to deal with.

I was easily sucked into the plot since Dillman quickly moves the story forward by piling on the tension and adding riveting chapter endings. Furthermore, she clearly has a great sense of humor and successfully achieves character voice in a way that rings true. Funny one-liners are peppered throughout the story and comic relief balances the building tension. DAEMONS IN THE MIST is packed with great pacing and the right balance of dialogue, introspection and action.

Not only is Dillman a gifted writer, she is also a talented artist. You should check out her website at Kat Girl Studio.

Publisher: Korat Publishing (May 20, 2011) 

Language: English 

ASIN: B0051XZNAI

Available: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Korat (ebook and print formats offered)