Friday Round-Up

Each week I round-up all the (mostly book-related) articles/blog posts/book reviews/websites/videos that entertained me during the week. Enjoy!



Articles

A round-up of "The World's Great Bookshops" - or in other words, how I will plan my next vacation.

The Banksy of Book Sculpting: The full story of The Library Phantom who left 10 book sculptures all over Edinburgh, Scotland. If only we could convince her to come to the States.

Flavorwire article of the week: "Ten Lost Novels the World Found Again"

Brilliant idea: "New books for new homeowners"

Don't miss "The Art of the Hobbit".

Taschen publishes absolutely lovely coffee-table art books. The Selby features photographs of the house of and a brief interview with Angelika Taschen.

Mark Twain's birthday dinner.

A really fascinating run-down of one book publication journey, from a self-published author with an agent. He rates himself on how well he did at each step. Gives you a lot to think about.

GalleyCat features directions on how to make a secret door out of a bookcase. Someday when I have my own...something (apt? house? building), that has to happen.

Children's Books

100 Scope Notes features a really lovely interview between Caldecott-winning illustrators Jerry Pinkney and Erin E. Stead.

The past, present, and possible future of the Newbery/Caldecott Awards explained in PW - featuring a former professor of mine and children's book expert, Anita Silvey!

BrainPickings showcases their list of "The 11 Best Illustrated Children's and Picture Books of 2011" and I don't disagree with them. These books are gorgeous. Though I would add a couple more to the list like Goliath from the Leviathan trilogy and anything Lane Smith has put out in the past year.

"The Most Disturbing Nursery Rhymes You've Never Heard" over at Book Dirt. Make sure to check out the rest of the blog while you're there - great content!

Over at The Browser, a Tintinologist discusses Herge and the inspiration for the classic Tintin tales.

Publishing Perspectives discusses the changing face of children's book reviews at The New York Times thanks to new New York Times Book Review children’s book editor Pamela Paul.

Libraries 

"New Organization Helps Libraries Get Artsy to Support Local Communities". Do I need to say more?

Publishing

A fascinating article about an Indian publishing company that specializes in illustrated books for the adult market (not adult-content, just adult non-fiction). I'm a huge fan of the actual illustrated book (you'll see a lot of what they publish have photographs), both fiction and non-fiction for adults, and would love to see publishing companies doing more of that.

New French publisher in the American children's book market. Lovely!

Website

For writers and others: Figment: Write Yourself In.

Little bit obsessed with NPR's Three Books series. Check it out; great recommendations.

Lists of Note. Companion site to Letters of Note, which I mentioned previously.

Designers & Books.
Explore. Learn. Enjoy. Watch this video.

In the Cube: James Biber Interviewed by Michael Bierut (abridged 5:22) from Designers & Books on Vimeo.

The Future of Children's Publishing

Thanks to @MarkMcVeigh and @LiaKeyes for today's post. Follow me on Twitter @rebf.

They tweeted about the Washington Post's article "The future of children's book publishing" by Stephen Lowman, which you should all read, as it talks about the intersection between publishing a paper hard copy and the availability of book content online.

While I don't disagree with the article's premise - children's book publishing will be increasingly linked with the internet, e-books, and other electronic and web-based sources - I'm looking for more of a "but how does that make you feel?" reaction than a straight demarcation of the current reality. The current reality is this: many publishers are dedicating time and money to designing children's book concepts (mostly Middle Grade, Tween, and YA a.k.a. Teen novels) that make heavy use of online content to supplement the hard copy book, and thus, make it a success.

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney story aside (for those who don't know the story, read the Post article - he began the strip online before it was ever a book), I think I can safely claim that most book ideas today don't begin with an internet concept, even if some of them end up there. Yet, almost all books have online content, whether it's a simple website about the book and its author, or the more involved sites, such as these by children's publisher Scholastic: Skeleton Creek, a book that uses a website and videos to help readers solve the clues to a terrifying mystery; and 39 Clues, a 10-book series, each title written by a different author, where readers collect game cards they can plug in online and download extra clues to help them solve this series' mystery. Other publishers are also catching up/catching on to this trend.

Here's my point about all of this. First, a disclaimer: I am NOT a Luddite (one who opposes technology and technological change), as I hope you can tell by the fact that I'm writing this on a blog. I use a computer every single day, and embrace technological advances from the flushing toilet to the iPod. Also, I recognize the importance, the validity, and even applaud the vision of meeting the new generations of readers on terms that are familiar to them. And yet. I can't help but be concerned that the Post article reported:

In January, a Kaiser Family Foundation report found that the time spent on all entertainment by kids from 8 to 18 rose from 6.5 hours a day five years ago to 7.5 hours a day. But only 25 minutes were typically spent reading a book. The Department of Education found that in 1984 only 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent of 17-year-olds reported that they "never or hardly ever" read for fun on their own. By 2008, the percentage had jumped to 24 percent for both groups. (Washington Post, "The Future of Children's Book Publishing", 03.21.10)

If I'm reading that correctly, on average, kids spend 7.5 hours a day on "entertainment," which I'm going to assume doesn't mean they're at school or doing homework, only the .5 portion of which is maybe spent reading, but 24% of those kids don't even bother to spend that .5.

Now, I'm not going to start to rant and rave, but I have to be honest when I say that I'm scared because I'm assuming that the majority of that 7.5 hours (and where on earth do they get that much free time?!) isn't spent climbing a tree, but is instead parked in front of some piece of technology, not interacting with the world around them.

But, you're going to say, they do interact with people via gchat, IM, twitter, email, electronic gaming sites, etc. etc. etc. And why would it be significantly healthier for them to be spending that 7.5 hours with "their nose stuck in a book," also not interacting with the world around them?

All valid points - my point is simply this: how can we, do we want to, make books that are engaging and help kids to engage in the rest of the world in a way not solely related to technology? Can we help kids to unplug, take a break, interact with the fam (yes, assuming the fam is willing and able to interact with them), notice the world immediately around them rather than confined in that 12-48 inch screen in front of them? Is the future of children's publishing going to encourage only multimedia interaction, or IRL (in real life) interaction, too?

Your thoughts?