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In Brief: June 28
This week, purveyors of children's and young adult literature were out in full force for ALA. Among them, authors from Abrams; Scholastic; Little, Brown; Penguin; and Sourcebooks.
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This Week in Children's Apps: June 28, 2012
This week in children's apps features an augmented reality add-on app to The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce, which allows users to point the app at the book and watch it come to life.
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Licensing Hotline: June 2012
HarperCollins Children’s Books has joined with Jim Henson Productions to launch a licensing program for Frog and Toad. It also has retained new licensing agents – Established Brands and the Wildflower Group, respectively – to expand the existing merchandise initiatives for Fancy Nancy and Goodnight Moon.
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Obituary: Deborah Brodie
Longtime children’s book editor and writing instructor Deborah Brodie died on Wednesday, June 27, in New York City. She was 67 and had suffered from cancer.
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The Living Books Series Returns as Storybook Apps
The Living Books series was one of the most successful CD-ROM products when they were first introduced by Broderbund in 1992 and the series is making a return next month as interactive storybook apps. The series is being developed for the new digital world by Wanderful, a San Francisco-based company headed by Mickey W. Mantle, who had overseen the Living Books launch when he was at Broderbund.
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In Brief: June 21
This week, a vintage TV show gets a 21st century update; booksellers get a peek at the new ABC catalog; a children's book festival debuts in Maryland; and a first-time novelist meets her fans.
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This Week in Children's Apps: June 21, 2012
This week in children's apps features the app based on Brave, the new Disney animated film.
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Taking the Pulse of Children's Bookselling—and Summer Reading
If there's one thing that's certain, besides death and taxes, it’s that even children’s bookstores are currently moving a lot of copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. According to PW's informal survey of what books will be hot for summer, Fifty Shades is even outselling another popular trilogy: Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games books.
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From Kazakhstan to NYC: An International Meeting of Women in Publishing
It looked like an ordinary gathering: a group of mostly women seated in a circle at the back of New York City bookstore Books of Wonder, discussing kids' books. But the June 12 event featured some atypical guests – four women from the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan who are each involved in one or more aspects of children’s publishing.
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The Kids (Books) Are Alright, Says the AAP's Monthly StatShot
The AAP Monthly StatShot for March 2012 shows children’s book sales up 46.6% over the same period in 2011 – an especially impressive figure given the lag in adult sales, down 11.6% at the houses that report numbers to the AAP.
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A Final Farewell to Maurice Sendak
On a rainy morning, this past Tuesday, friends gathered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium to pay final tribute to the life and work of Maurice Sendak, who died on May 8.
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Children's Books at BEA 2012: Photos from the Show
BookExpo America took over the Javits Center last week, and from panels to parties and (almost) mile-long lines for book signings, children's books were everywhere you looked. Read on for our photo-tour of all the festivities.
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Summer Reading on SiriusXM
Last month, The Absolutely Mindy Show and author-illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka launched “The Book Report with JJK" interview segment on the Kids Place Live radio channel on Sirius XM. This month, the same team is kicking off the Summer Book Club. At the end of each month this summer, JJK and Mindy Thomas will air an interview with a different featured author, who will be available for a live chat following the interview.
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Writing and Marketing Memorable Children's Literature: A Panel Discussion
Discovering a great children's book is a little like "falling in love," says Edward Nawotka, editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives. But aside from the subjective and often mysterious spell that a book casts over the reader, are there certain definable qualities that contribute toward making a children's book unforgettable? Fifteen industry professionals addressed this topic and others during a wide-ranging, half-day conference called What Makes a Children’s Book Great? The May 31 event was sponsored by Publishing Perspectives and the Frankfurt Academy and was held at Scholastic headquarters in New York City.
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Book-Based Brand Extensions Highlighted at Las Vegas Licensing Expo
Publishing properties are making news at the 32nd annual Licensing International Expo this week, with several licensors and licensing agents announcing new launches and new representation of book-based licensing programs.
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BEA 2012: Kids' Books in the Digital Age
In Wednesday's presentation, "Understanding the Children's Book Consumer in the Digital Age," Kelly Gallagher, v-p of Publishing Workflow Solutions, R.R. Bowker, offered some good news for children's booksellers, While e-books accounted for 24% of books purchased between April 2011 and 2012, e-book sales for kids up to age 12 is considerably smaller, closer to 5%. It is a different story for YA, now at 14%. But based on a succession of surveys of parents of children up to age 12, conducted in October 2010, October 2011, and April 2012, Gallagher predicts continued slow growth for digital books for young children.
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Pannell Award Honors Two Bookstores at BEA
At yesterday's Children’s Book & Author Breakfast, two bookstores received the WNBA Pannell Award, given annually since 1983 by the Women's National Book Association to a pair of bookstores that excel in bringing books and young readers together. This year's winners are Book Beat in Oak Park, Mich., in the general bookstore category, and Monkey See, Monkey Do in Clarence, N.Y., in the children's specialty category.
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ABA Debuts ABC Children's Institute at BEA
Wednesday marked the first ever American Booksellers Association's ABC Children's Institute, and the day's agenda was chockful of educational sessions, roundtable discussions, networking opportunities, author hobnobbing, and other events. The idea for the daylong event, says Joy Dallanegra-Sanger, ABA's senior program officer, was conceived after the ABA-ABC merger.
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BEA 2012: Big Books for Kids: Surveying the Scene
By all accounts this year's BEA was an upbeat show, and nowhere was that more evident than among children's publishers. Macmillan's Allison Verost said, "When the doors opened at 9 a.m., people were making a beeline to our booth for galleys."



