SWEET ON BOOKS BLOG

Those e-books just won't go away...

Following up on our post about the future of books, check out this USA Today article on digital readers.

According to the article, e-book sales account for 9% of the consumer book market and their sales are up 193% from last year. Harper Collins CEO Brian Murray reports "a sea of change in the past few months" among new best-selling books. In some cases, the e-books are doing better than hardcovers.  One poll sited, however indicates that while 8% have an e-reader and 12% are likely to buy one in the next six months, 80% say they're not likely to make this purchase.  Are the answers different when we talk to kids?  Well, when children ages 9 to 17 were asked about digital books in a recent Scholastic poll, 57% said they're interested in reading e-books and 33% said they'd be more likely to read for pleasure if they had greater access to ebooks.  Young or old, maybe there's enough room in this world for both digital books and printed ones.  Personally, I think that both deserve a place in my house!

Are e-books the future for children's books?

According to Publisher's Weekly all 150 titles in The Boxcar Children Mysteries series will be published in e-book format, with 19 released by this Christmas.  So is this the future for all children's books?  Will there still be books or even bookstores in the years ahead?  Will the technology be good enough to do justice to Picture Books which as we've said, are so vital to our kids?  Well, the path we're on now definitely seems as if it is leading us in this direction.  The question is, will we be better off when we get there?  And which path do you take - Kindle, ipad, the Barnes & Noble NOOK?  As if we didn't have enough decisions to make these days!  Maybe it will be a change for the better but for the record, my books are already treasures and they're not even endangered species yet.

 

Are all dog books sad?

I read someplace recently that if a book is about a dog it is likely to be sad and if it is about a chicken it will probably be funny.  Do you think there's any merit to this theory?  City Dog, Country Frog was sad but it was about a sad dog and a sad frog.  I'm not exactly sure where frogs stand on the humor scale.  I recently read Interrupting Chicken and that was hilarious but are chickens always funny?  What about elephants and pigs - I mean, have you read Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie books?  They bring me to tears they're so funny.  The more I started thinking about this subject, the more I realized there is to think about...why are animals used so often in children's literature?  Which animals are used most often, and why?  Do certain animals tend to send specific messages or apply to certain themes?  Is there any animal that hasn't been covered in children's literature?  I mean who would have thought an Aardvark would have his own book or even a television series.  Animals clearly serve an important role in our kids' development and I think the subject deserves more thought.  I'll keep you posted on what I come up with in the days ahead and I'd love to hear your thoughts too!

We are back blogging!

Ok...sorry....this blog has been woefully ignored.  What with reading and reviewing children's books for Sweet on Books and raising a few kids, this blog has been neglected.  We are hoping to change that right now.  May is such an exciting month for children's literature, and we are seeing such exciting things, we just need to pass them on!

Our friends at Shelf Awareness have a great quote today from Ireland's first children's laureate Author and publisher Siobhán Parkinson:

 

"I believe that children's literature lays the foundations of the imaginative life of a people, and that every child deserves to have access to a reading haven.... Literature plays a unique role in helping us to interrogate who we are as a society; it has the power to make us understand what it means to be human, and it offers us that most subversive of things--pleasure."

Here is a link to the full article in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

Did you know the US has a National Ambassador for Young People's Literature??  None other than the fabulous Katherine Patterson.  Stay tuned for more on that...including free downloads of Patterson's writing!

 

cool stuff

A little off-topic, but that's what blogs are for, right?  There is a company called Idiot Books, run by a husband and wife team, who create one of a kind books you can subscribe to, purchase or customize.  I saw a little blurb in NY Mag about "assembling your own fairy tale picture books" and had to take a look.  The creators sound funny in the copy of their website and the books look cool and different.   The "Babies are Disappointing" book looks hilarious.  Their website suggests a customized book for the friend who has everything.  Click here to take a look.