kid lit

A Golden Era for Young Readers: The Story Behind Little Golden Books

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This post by Rob Lammle originally appeared on Mental Floss on 6/12/15.

There’s a good chance you grew up reading the adventures of The Poky Little Puppy, Tootle, or Scuffy the Tugboat in the pages of Little Golden Books. But how much do you know about the story behind these beloved tales?

Before the introduction of Little Golden Books in 1942, children’s books weren’t necessarily made with children’s interests in mind. They were usually large volumes that were too difficult for young readers to handle or comprehend, and were awfully expensive at $2 to $3 each (that’s about $28 – $42 today). But George Duplaix of the Artist’s and Writer’s Guild, in partnership with Simon & Schuster Publications and Western Printing, wanted to change all that.

Duplaix thought the solution was small, sturdy, inexpensive books with fewer pages, simpler stories, and more illustrations so little kids could actually enjoy them. Western was already publishing a line for kids called Golden Books, so Duplaix and his team piggy-backed on those marketing efforts, calling the new line Little Golden Books.

The first 12 titles were released on October 1, 1942, at a price of only a quarter a piece. They were an instant success. After only five months on the market, 1.5 million copies had been sold and many titles were already in their third printing; by 1945, most were in their seventh printing. One of the keys to their sales success was the fact that they were available in unusual places, such as department stores, drug stores, and supermarkets. Busy parents could keep rambunctious children occupied while they ran errands, and not feel guilty about the additional 25 cents tacked onto their final bills.

 

Read the full post on Mental Floss.

 

Introducing Kindle Kids’ Book Creator and KDP Kids

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From Amazon’s press release dated 9/3/14:

Authors can easily publish children’s books and reach millions of Kindle readers around the world

Kindle Kids’ Book Creator for illustrated children’s books available for download today

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sep. 3, 2014– (NASDAQ:AMZN)—Amazon today announced KDP Kids, designed to help children’s book authors prepare, publish and promote both illustrated and chapter books in Kindle Stores worldwide. Children’s book authors can use Amazon’s new Kindle Kids’ Book Creator tool to easily create illustrated children’s books that take advantage of Kindle features like text pop-ups. Once the book is ready, authors can upload it to KDP in just a few simple steps, and use KDP’s category, age and grade range filters to help millions of Amazon customers choose the right books for their kids. Authors can earn royalties of up to 70%, while keeping their rights and maintaining control of their content. Authors can also choose to enroll their books in KDP Select for additional royalty opportunities like Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and access to marketing tools like Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Promotions. Get started today at kdp.amazon.com/kids.

“Authors want to focus on telling great stories and we want to help them do that. No one should have to be a computer programmer to create a beautiful, illustrated Kindle book for kids,” said Russ Grandinetti, Senior Vice President, Kindle. “Kindle Kids’ Book Creator makes it easy. In addition to helping authors craft their books, we’re helping customers find them with things like age and grade range filters.”

By creating a digital edition of their book, authors can reach a whole new audience of Kindle readers, who have already downloaded millions of children’s books this year.

Some authors got an early look at what KDP Kids offers, and here’s what they’re saying:

“The new Kindle Kids’ Book Creator is exactly what I’ve been looking for,” said children’s book author Niki Alling. “I was able to create fun popups with ease. I have plans to upgrade my existing children’s books with this new tool, and to use it with future books also. I highly recommend it to children’s book authors who want to add some extra fun to their eBooks.”

“As a self-published author, doing all the work myself and being no technical expert, I found this so easy to use,” said children’s book author and illustrator Michele Lynn Seigfried. “It will definitely save me time and money when I publish my future books.”

“Since I’ve published books for children of all ages, it’s a big plus that the Kindle Store helps parents find books by their kids’ age range,” said children’s science books author Seymour Simon. “KDP gave me all the tools and information I needed to get my books in front of the right audience.”

To learn more about publishing children’s books through KDP, or to download the Kindle Kids’ Book Creator, visit kdp.amazon.com/kids.

 

Reading Instead of Tweeting: Part II

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This post by Kelly originally appeared on the Little Pickle Press blog on 8/7/14.

I don’t just watch trends happen in education when it comes to reading: I live them daily. In my two decades as an educator in various capacities, I have seen my share of trends come and go when it comes to instruction of reading, but there are some constants and hard data that educators and parents use to make decisions about reading. The research is telling us a number of disturbing trends about how fewer parents are reading to their children and that in the previous 30 years we’ve seen reading decline further and further amongst children.

So, when I hear things like “Kids just aren’t reading these days!” I have to stop myself from arguing against it when the research and data tells us that it’s true. Developmentally, reading is a part of what makes our imaginations blossom and our worldview expand, but I also know that there are other things capturing the attention of children.

Naturally, much of this discussion comes with advances in technology and apps that are appealing to younger and younger children. Getting my own teens to continue reading long after I stopped reading to them was a battle but we got lucky in that they found what interested them early on and it they were varied genres. Of course, I didn’t have to compete with smartphones or easily accessible apps to get my own children to read. While they were growing up the media that vied for their attention was the television or video games and even that wasn’t seen as an “addiction” like many believe it to be today.

 

Click here to read the full post on the Little Pickle Press blog.

 

A 'Wimpy' Plan to Save the Physical Book

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This article by Sona Charaipotra originally appeared on The Atlantic on 6/20/14.

Children’s author Jeff Kinney’s new shop will emphasize reading as a tangible, community experience in a digital, fractured world.

Jeff Kinney, the man behind the astonishingly powerful Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, is leading the revolution.

That’s been the theory behind the bestselling author’s just-announced plans to open up an indie bookstore in tiny Plainville, Massachusetts. It’s been framed as a call-to-arms against Amazon in the wake of its strong-arming tactics in negotiating with the big five publishing houses, starting with (fellow giant) Hachette.

Take back the power, fight the system, and all that, right?

Wrong.

If Kinney’s stoking a counterculture, it’s to harken back to the past. In his Plainville shop, he imagines a cozy, well-worn space with old tomes and tea, frequented by locals and writerly souls. “A physical book has a heft, a permanence that you don’t get digitally,” says Kinney in an interview. “So our hope is that the bookstore will remain a vital, important part of communities across the country and the world.”
 

Click here to read the full article on The Atlantic.

 

Censorship: Who Decides, and How?

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This post by Dani Greer originally appeared on the Little Pickle Press blog on 6/25/14.

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about book banning and censorship, and posed the question: who should be the censor?

When I was growing up, it was my mother, who was German and not particularly well-read. I grew up with books like Struwwelpeter which in my not-so-humble opinion should be banned from the planet. But my mother, who has a quite common German sense of humor (i.e. different from American humor), adores this book and continues to buy it – now for her great-grandchildren. We have argued the point, and she will never understand my view that the book is violent and offensive, even as I can’t understand where she sees any humor in the collection of stories.

Now multiply that scenario by many books, and countless families, within many community schools and libraries and you can see the challenges of finding acceptable middle ground. Because, yes, a compromise must be reached in any arena in which funding is supplied by the general public. When taxpayers are involved, the greatest number of people must be pleased by their joint expenditures. It’s perhaps an impossibility in actuality, but my point is, that should be the goal of government. I know this stance will offend many small groups on the extreme right and left of an issue, but stick with me for a moment and pretend you agree that the best way to handle censorship is by pleasing the bell curve.

 

Click here to read the full post on the Little Pickle Press blog.