Ginee Seo is the children's publishing director at Chronicle Books, a position she's held for more than two years. We knew Seo when she was an editor at HarperTrophy (the paperback imprint of HarperCollins Children's Books), where she rose through the ranks to v-p, editorial director, before leaving to become v-p and editorial director at Simon & Schuster's Atheneum, where she founded her own imprint. Then she moved to San Francisco to join Chronicle. Chronicle Books Children's Publishing celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. What follows will give you a flavor of how well read Seo is.
On your nightstand now:
I just finished A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, a magnificent, Trollopean read. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson is my next adult trade treat--I don't get to read a lot of books for adults. The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers, which I've rediscovered after going to the restaurant recently. I love reading cookbooks, not necessarily to cook from, but for their point of view. Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations is my guilty pleasure reading, and it's every bit as fantastically wicked as I thought it would be. March by John Lewis, which a colleague got for me at Comic-Con. And my dear friend Caitlyn Dlouhy sent me a book she edited, The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kodahata, which I can't wait to start.
Favorite books when you were a child:
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, still a favorite, extraordinary and subversive in every way. I try to reread it every year for inspiration. Little Women--the March girl I loved most was the sainted Beth. I'd rather not think about what this says about me. The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban, a strange and brilliant book that puzzled me so much as a child I read it over and over trying to figure it out.
Your top five authors:
Henry James, Jane Austen, Raymond Carver, M.F.K. Fisher, E.B. White.
Book you've faked reading:
Ulysses. I read the Cliffs Notes for a final in college, an act that shames me to this day. Eventually I got around to reading the real thing.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Not a single book, but an idea: to banish the notion forever that children's and young adult books, because they are created for young people, are somehow a lesser form of literature. At least the children's book field is getting some grudging respect because it makes money, but the condescension many of us (by which I mean artists as well as publishing professionals) still have to deal with is astonishing, and unacceptable.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I'm more of a sucker for a good colophon. I've bought books from the Black Lizard imprint (both the original press and the Vintage Crime re-do) and it was the imprint name and colophon that made me pick up the book. And before I joined Chronicle, that glasses colophon would get me every time. I swear they didn't put me up to this.
Books that changed your life:
There were two: Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary. I didn't like reading until I found that book. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. It made me confront and own my identity as an Asian American woman.
Favorite line from a book:
"Goodnight, Nobody." From Goodnight Moon. Every time I come to that spread in the book I'm gobsmacked.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Ulysses. See above.