Notes: Scholastic Plans New Blockbuster; Book Fair Slips
Will lightning strike twice?
Scholastic aims to follow up on Harry Potter by creating a new blockbuster series: the 39 Clues, consisting of 10 books that will be released every two to three months beginning in September, today's New York Times reported. Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, has written the first title in the new series, The Maze of Bones, and outlined the nine other titles. The second, third and fourth books will be written by Gordon Korman, Peter Lerangis and Jude Watson, respectively.
The 39 Clues will include "related Web-based games, collectors' cards and cash prizes" in an effort to engage the target audience of children 8 to 12 on the Internet and with video games as well as books. Scholastic's David Levithan commented: "We want to go where the kids are and really be part of their complete world, rather than going to one aspect of their world. We talk of it as being subversively educational."
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The organizers of BuchBasel are canceling the next edition of the trade show, which was scheduled for next May 2-4, because of "difficult market conditions," according to Schweizer Buchhandel. The organizers hope to pick up again in 2009; the show would have been the sixth annual. A decision about the concurrent International Literature Festival will be made shortly. Among the difficult conditions: the end of fixed book prices in Switzerland and "the lack of an effective lobby for the book." In related news, fair director Stephan Lips has resigned.
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Michael Jackson and his three children were spotted and photographed in a Las Vegas Barnes & Noble this past weekend, according to the New York Daily News. "They arrived at 10:30 p.m. Sunday and stayed three hours before leaving with several crateloads of books and magazines, witnesses said. Reading glasses in hand and clad in a homely green Army surplus coat, Jackson wandered through the stacks holding a picture book about dragons in his arms before splitting with his kids in tow."
The story includes an obligatory bizarre photo.
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At the invitation of the Beijing Book Fair--which holds its national edition January 8-11--BookExpo America is taking a delegation of seven booksellers and librarians. (The Beijing International Book Fair is usually held in late August.) The delegation includes:
- Karl Pohrt, founder and owner of Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich.
- Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Wash.
- Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Robinson in New York City
- Alison Hill of Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, Calif.
- Paul Yamazaki of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, Calif.
- Barbara Genco of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, N.Y.
- Nancy Pearl, librarian, bestselling author and book reviewer
[Editor's note: Don't they need a journalist, too?]
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"When was the last time you told a bedtime story?" asked the Kansas City Star in an article that suggested the "bedtime story tradition is fading in American homes."
The Star
cited a recently released survey, "Reading Across the Nation," which
discovered that "just under half of the parents surveyed said that they
or other family members read every day to their children, from newborns
to 5-year-olds."
Vermont ranked first in the study, with 67%
percent of respondents claiming they read to their children daily;
Mississippi was last at 38%.
Pete Cowdin, co-owner of the
Reading Reptile children’s bookstore, Brookside, Mo., called the
survey’s findings "ridiculous," adding that parents who read to their
young children every day are "pretty rare in this day and age." His own
estimate of the percentage who do was in the 20s.
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The Press of Atlantic City
profiled Sherlock's Tomes bookstore, Bridgeton, N.J., noting that, "in
just 14 months, Linda Durkin Richardson and her partner Jim Chiappardi
have proved to the skeptics that there is a place for a small retail
business . . . even in a city where many businesses have left the area."
Richardson
said she "used to visit my grandparents in the '50s and '60s and had
memories of a then thriving community. I wanted to bring something back
to Bridgeton, and one of my dreams has been to have a bookstore."
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Book Gift Suggestions:
E! Entertainment Television asked "some of our favorite authors recommend their picks for 2007."
"Stuff stockings with festive books for kids," advised the Salt Lake City Tribune.
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Los 4 Fantasticos. Marvel Comics will release its first Spanish-language version of a comic book in the U.S. on December 28, according to USA Today, which reported that "translated American comics have long been available overseas, but this is the first major title to be released simultaneously in English and another language. The creative team, writer Tom Beland and artist Juan Doe, both have Puerto Rican roots, and the story finds the superheroes battling blood-sucking chupacabras."
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A few of the happy diners: (from l.) Bill Rusin, Norton trade sales director; Dan Christaens, Northwest sales rep; Marilyn Dahl, Shelf book review editor; Manil Suri; Hilary Vonckx, Queen Anne Avenue Books; Stesha Brandon, events coordinator for University Book Store; Rick Simonson, head buyer at Elliott Bay Book Company.