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Q & A with Children’s Book Agent Steven Malk – Publishers Weekly

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Extract from receommended interview with Steven Malk, of Writers House Literary Agency

 

What are some current trends you’ve noticed in the children’s publishing world? Do you have any predictions for future growth in the children’s market?

I’ve definitely noted the explosion of graphic novels and heavily illustrated books for older readers, which I find super heartening. There’s a rise in different forms and formats for nonfiction, which for me, as a former history and poli sci major, is very gratifying.

What’s on your manuscript wish list at the moment?

I love coming across a voice I haven’t read before. I love books that open windows into a wide range of experiences. Not many people know it, but I’m a huge fan of mysteries and read them in my spare time whenever I can. I’d love to find a great mystery, especially a mystery with real emotional stakes and a setting we haven’t seen before. I’ve always been a big fan of flawed or unreliable narrators as protagonists.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/80805-q-a-with-children-s-book-agent-steven-malk.html

Malorie Blackman Feature

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Can warmly recommend a big feature interview with Malorie Blackman (whose new ‘Noughts & Crosses’ novel, Crossfire, is published early next month)in last weekend’s Sunday Times Magazine. Here is a short extract:

In her 29 years as a published author, however, she has only ever had one black editor. The publishing industry remains overwhelmingly white, and one black novelist Blackman knows had a family suppertime scene rejected on the grounds that, “ this is not authentic enough because black people don’t eat spaghetti bolognese”. Her eyes widen. “I kid you not. So when you’re representing your life and being told by the gatekeepers that it’s not the black experience — because you’ve got a black family eating spaghetti bolognese — it’s not a level playing field. I do have a problem when authentic voices aren’t being allowed the same opportunities to publish their stories that perhaps white authors are.”

For Blackman, the big concern about YA fiction is the current fall in sales. In February, the Bookseller reported they had dropped to their lowest level in 11 years — and she thinks she knows why. Michael Gove’s reforms to the English curriculum are, she fears, “going to kill the love of reading stone dead. You have to engage kids in reading for pleasure. By the time they reach secondary school, they’re not going to be keen on reading if in primary school they’ve been told to underline all the adverbs and count all the adjectives.” She is equally impatient with the idea that children should only read the classics and is a big fan of graphic novels.“This idea of, ‘My child’s only reading comics, what do I do?’ Easy. Buy them more comics!”

The Sunday Times

 

Crossing On Time – Latest Book From David Macaulay

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The latest book from David Macaulay (best known for The Way Things Work) is not yet published in the UK, but the American edition can be ordered from Amazon).

From Valley News
https://www.vnews.com/Bookstock-featured-author-David-Macaulay-hopes-new-book-inspires-people-to-pay-attention-27216247

Crossing on Time, published in May by Roaring Brook Press, showcases the grand steamship that triumphed in the global rivalry to build the fastest and best ocean liner and capped a vital era in transportation.

It also marks the first time Macaulay has made an appearance in one of his own books. The SS United States carried Macaulay, his mother, brother and sister from Bolton, England, to their new home in the United States in 1957, when he was 10 years old.

Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something, bravery will matter, wit, empathy, love will matter.

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Katherine Rundell, introducing the five children’s books she thinks every adult should read, says:

The books say: look, this is what bravery looks like. This is what generosity looks like. They tell me, through the medium of wizards and sexy Jesus lions and talking spiders, that this world we live in is a world of people who tell jokes and work and endure. Children’s books say: the world is huge. They say: hope counts for something, bravery will matter, wit, empathy, love will matter. These things may or may not be true. I hope that they are.

She chooses:
The Paddington books by Michael Bond
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson
Peter Pan by JM Barrie

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/26/story-time-five-children-s-books-everyone-should-read-katherine-rundell

Dan Metcalf On Notebooks

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Dan Metcalf, author of the Lottie Lipton Adventures series, is today’s contributor to An Awfully Big Blog Adventure.

He sings the Song of the Notebook, “the bedrock of the writing profession”:

Digital pretenders try to usurp the throne of the mighty notebook; the elephantine Evernote – the social Pinterest – the humble blog. None can take the place of the battered book in my pocket, waiting to be folded, felt, fondled, to be torn, scribbled on and abused. The tactility of the notebook its USP. An individual feel which can not be replaced.

Two Book Deal For Brighton Based Illustrator

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Brighton-based illustrator, Alice McKinley, who completed her MA at Cambridge School of Art last year, has signed a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster, to include the previously optioned picture book Nine Lives Newton.  

S&S editorial director Helen Mackenzie Smith told The Bookseller: “From the moment that we spotted the blissfully carefree canine, Newton, at her degree show last year, we knew that we wanted to work with the fabulously talented Alice McKinley. We are so proud to be publishing her debut picture book here at Simon & Schuster.”

Alice McKinley’s blog: https://mckalice-illustration.tumblr.com
Alice McKinley’s Insta: https://www.instagram.com/mckalice/

Boston Globe and Horn Book Awards 2019

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First presented in 1967 and customarily announced in June, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards are among the most prestigious honors in the field of children’s and young adult literature. Winners are selected in three categories: Picture Book, Fiction and Poetry, and Nonfiction. Two Honor Books may be named in each category. The winning titles must be published in the United States but they may be written or illustrated by citizens of any country. The awards are chosen by an independent panel of three judges who are annually appointed by the Editor of the Horn Book.

This year’s winners:

Fiction & Poetry
 
Amazon
The Season of Styx Malone by Kekla Magoon (Lamb/Random House)
Honor Books: Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram (Dial/Penguin Random House); On the Come Up by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)

Nonfiction

Amazon
 
This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality by Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy (Bloomsbury)
Honor Books: Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Graphix/Scholastic); Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born by Miranda Paul, illustrated by Jason Chin (Porter/Holiday House)

Picture Book

Amazon
 
The Patchwork Bike by Maxine Beneba Clarke, illustrated by Van Thanh Rudd (Candlewick)
Honor Books: Dreamers by Yuyi Morales (Porter/Holiday House); We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Frané Lessac (Charlesbridge)

All previous winners >>>

Newbery And Caldecott 2019 – VERY Belatedly

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I am shocked to discover that I omitted to report on the the Newbery and Caldecott winners at the time of the announcement this year.

Let me put that right!

The 2019 Newbery winner was Merci Suárez Changes Gears, written by Meg Medina, published by Candlewick Press…

Amazon

There were also two Honor books:
The Night Diary, written by Veera Hiranandani and published by Kokila
The Book of Boy, written by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, illustrated by Ian Schoenherr, and published by Greenwillow Books

The 2019 Caldecott winner was Hello Lighthouse, illustrated and written by Sophie Blackall, published by Little, Brown…

Waterstones

There were also four Honor books:
Alma and How She Got Her Name, illustrated and written by Juana Martinez-Neal, published by Candlewick Press
A Big Mooncake for Little Star, illustrated and written by Grace Lin, published by Little, Brown
The Rough Patch, illustrated and written by Brian Lies, published by Greenwillow Books
Thank You, Omu!, illustrated and written by Oge Mora, published by Little, Brown 

Look how Little Brown maxed out in the Newbery this year, publishing the winning title as well as two of the four Honor books.

Hot Key Signs Carnegie Winner In Three Book Deal

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The Bookseller reports that Bonnier imprint Hot Key has signed Elizabeth Acevedo (winner of this year’s Carnegie Medal) in a six-figure three-book 3-book deal, consisting of:

  1. Avedcodo’s first prose novel, With The Fire On High, pulblished in the US in May this year – Hot Key will publish this title in September (2019)
  2. Clap When You Land, a new novel in verse, will be published simultaneously in May 20120.
  3. A thirs, as yet untitled novel, will follow in 2021.

 

2019 UKLA Book Award Winners

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The UKLA Book Awards are the only awards to be judged entirely by teachers. The awards are presented to books that are considered to “enhance all aspects of literacy learning”.  The judging process ensures teachers are able to share the books with their classes and discover what genuinely works with young readers in each of the three age categories. Judgements are therefore soundly based on pupil response.   

For an unprecedented second year in a row the 3-6 category has been won by Morag Hood. She said “I am so honoured that I Am Bat has been chosen as the winner, and to win for the second time is just incredible! What better accolade than from the teachers who know and understand children the most. It fills me with joy to know that my little bat is being used in classrooms and, I hope, helping to encourage a life-long love of reading.” 

Equally unprecedented was the fact that the judges, after intense debate, decided to award a Highly Commended in each of the three age categories to books that were very different but equally valuable and too good not to be specially recognised. So the Newbery Medal winning After the Fall by Dan Santat has been Highly Commended in the 3-6 category with S.E Durrant’s Running On Empty in the 7-11 and Carnegie medal winning Elizabeth Acevado’s verse novel The Poet X in the 12-16. 

This has been a triumphant year for poetry. Indeed, the verse novel Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds won the 12-16 category, while The Explorer by Katherine Rundell took the 7-11 category.  

The 2019 awards were presented at a special ceremony on July 12th at the UKLA International Conference, Sheffield Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University. Student teachers from 20 universities around the UK take part in Shadowing the awards and read and use the shortlisted books on teaching practice in schools before having their own online vote to select their own winners. Mini Grey‘s The Last Wolf was the 3-6 winner and S.E Durrant’ Running on Empty won the 7-11 student vote too. The National Education Union sponsors  student shadowers to attend the conference and they also announced and presented their awards at the ceremony.

10 teachers nominated from the 58 involved in the shortlisting, who came from Midlands region around Sheffield, formed the final judging panel and had the challenging task of reading all the shortlisted books in all three age categories, which meant nursery teachers reading fiction for teenagers and secondary teachers reading picture books.

Research carried out by members of UKLA (Cremin et al 2008) clearly demonstrated the links between teachers’ knowledge of children’s books and the likelihood of pupils becoming successful readers. Despite this evidence, teachers are seldom given time to read new books or funding to purchase them when they do.

 

The Shortlists in full

3-6

After the Fall written and illustrated by Dan Santat (Andersen Press)

The Last Wolf written and illustrated by Mini Grey (Jonathan Cape)

Bob’s Blue Period written and illustrated by Marion Deuchars  (Laurence King)

Stardust written by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Briony May Smith (Nosy Crow)

The Big Book of the Blue written and illustrated by Yuval Zommer (Thames & Hudson)

I Am Bat written and illustrated by Morag Hood (Two Hoots)

7-11

The Explorer written by Katherine Rundell illustrated by Hannah Horn (Bloomsbury)

Running on Empty written by S. E. Durrant illustrated by Rob Biddulph (Nosy Crow)

Sky Dancer written by Gill Lewis (Oxford)

The Wild Robot written and illustrated by Peter Brown (Piccadilly)

The Murderer’s Ape written and illustrated by Jakob Wegelius. Translated by Peter Graves (Pushkin Press)

Kick written by Mitch Johnson (Usborne Publishing)

12-16 

Moonrise written by Sarah Crossan (Bloomsbury)

The Poet X written by Elizabeth Acevedo (Egmont Electric Monkey)

Long Way Down written by Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Chris Priestley (Faber)

Piglettes written and translated by Clémentine Beauvais (Pushkin Press)

After the Fire written by Will Hill (Usborne Publishing)

Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein written and illustrated by Lita Judge (Wren & Rook)

 

https://ukla.org/awards/ukla-book-award