Editors at Scholastic’s book fairs and clubs along with their trade editors have released a forecast of 10 top trends in children’s books for 2013. They say bullying is “the timely topic,” and also look for biographies, Civil War anniversary books and survival stories in nonfiction. In fiction they say to keep a watch out for more strong girl protagonists; novels in cartoon form; and sci-fi. The year’s big movie tie-ins include film releases of Scott Orson Card’s Ender’s Game, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures, Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, and the latest Percy Jackson adaptation, Sea of Monsters. […]
Children's
More NYT Bestseller List Changes, As YA and Middle Grade Get Separate Lists
The New York Times will split its children’s Chapter Book bestseller lists into separate middle grade and young adult lists beginning with the December 16 issue (though the lists will be online Friday and were sent around to the trade last night.) Those two lists, as well as the series bestseller lists, will reflect sales across all platforms, including ebooks. (Author John Green has posted a screenshot of the YA and middle grade lists here.) The picture books bestseller list, however, will concentrate on hardcover unit sales only. In a note to publishers sent this week the NYT adds: “We […]
Expanding Children’s
Next month Ruckus Media will expand their children’s ebook platform with a revamped Ruckus 2.0 app/store release and in advance, the company has announced a number of “ebook partnerships for digital distribution” with other publishers. Their new relationships include deals with Little, Brown Children’s, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s, Thomas Nelson and Charlesbridge Publishing, covering “about three dozen new titles” at launch with more titles to be added on a monthly basis thereafter. Licensed titles include THE POLAR EXPRESS, TOOT AND PUDDLE, many CURIOUS GEORGE titles, some Margaret Wise Brown titles, and HEAVEN IS FOR REAL FOR KIDS Release That announcement […]
Briefs: Bardowl Audiobook Streaming Service Launches in Europe; Reading Rainbow iPad App; And More
A new audiobook subscription service, Bardowl, has launched in Europe and will provide unlimited access to audiobooks for £9.99 a month for those with iOS devices. Among the publishers who have signed on to provide audiobooks to Bardowl are Penguin, Macmillan, AudioGo, Wiley, and specialist audio publishers Summersdale and Creative Content. Release Months after announcing LeVar Burton and his company RRKidz announced their intention to revive Reading Rainbow, the long-running PBS children’s show that ended in 2009, as an iPad app, the service is now live in the iTunes store, available at an introductory price of $9.99 a month or […]
People: Gilbert Moves from Sterling Children’s to Doubleday, and More
As part of the continuing demise of Sterling, veteran children’s book editor Frances Gilbert will leave her position as vp, publisher of Sterling Children’s to join Random House Children’s Books as editorial director, Doubleday, starting June 18. Gilbert will report to vp, publishing director of the Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group, Mallory Loehr. She will acquire and publish new books in a variety of formats and categories including board books, picture books, narrative nonfiction, novels and ebooks, and will also oversee the backlist publishing program. Gilbert has been at Sterling for 12 years. Her first list for Doubleday is planned for […]
Ruckus Launches Own Reader App, Focused On Building Reading Skills
Ruckus Media Group is launching a Ruckus Reader app Monday through iTunes, in the vein of Scholastic’s Storia platform and PlayTales (originally Touchy Books). The focus of Ruckus Reader is on the acquisition of reading skills, and it includes learning assessment reports so that “parents can easily understand their child’s reading level and their progress week-to-week.” Focused on preschoolers through second graders, the Ruckus Reader has three different reading levels, for emergent, beginning, and independent readers. And it’s designed to “match age-appropriate standards determined by the Common Core State Standards. “Children practice early reading skills from letter sounds, word recognition, […]