Librarian Preview: Simon & Schuster (Fall 2009)

Simon & Schuster is still relatively new to the old preview game. While Little, Brown and Company likes to sit back and take advantage of its four to five year tradition, S&S is still working out the kinks. They’ve significantly improved since they started. These days their previews are quick, peppy, and sport some very superior muffins on hand. I would venture to call them the best muffins of any preview out there. This most recent preview had some new things to offer as well. While we still had the jaw-dropping array of little varieagated pulped orange juices, there were also PowerPoint handouts and sheets for our feedback. Nice bags of books were under each chair as well. Of course, this was the Fall 2009 season and other houses are currently showing Spring 2010 titles, but I actually haven’t seen a lot of these Fall books ANDANDAND it meant that those few I had reviewed sometimes got mentioned during the preview. So that’s cool.

Before we proceeded to the presentation room, however, we mingled in the breakfast area and chatted.  I’m fairly certain that the special authorial guest had been announced with our invitations, but I’d long since forgotten who it was.  This indicated to me that whoever it was, they must be YA.  I don’t pay very close attention to YA affairs, so when I walked through the room and heard an unfamiliar looking man say, "Well, I’m an author so . . ." I turned to look at him.  Nice looking fellow.  Tallish.  Blondish.  Utterly unfamiliar.  I walked on.

Upstairs, it was time for the show to begin and how nice!  We had little signed copies of Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld on our chairs.  Of course it’s YA, right?  So I was going to give it little to no interest . . . and then he stood up to speak.

Yup.  Special guest Scott Westerfeld.  That dude.

Fun Fact: For the past week prior to this preview I was mistakenly saying that Leviathan was by David Levithan.  I assume I was doing that because I hoped that it was true.  It is not true.  Levithan and Westerfeld have very little in common.  That said, I would now like Mr. Levithan to write something with the word "Leviathan" in the title somewhere, just so that I can giggle about it in my spare time.  Failing that, Mr. Westerfeld can write something about Wrigley Field.  I’m not picky.

Westerfeld man started to speak and I discovered a small flaw with the PowerPoint handouts.  They were, unfortunately,  black with tiny white borders.  So really, the only place to take notes was in the tiny white edges with my thick black Sharpie pen.  Whoopsie.  Later a librarian would say to me, "Even if they’d been gray, we could have written on them."  Fortunately they’d also give us the Fall 2009 catalogs, so that was what I used for the most part.

We learned that in the images the Darwinian world is represented by curvy lines, while the Clankers are squared off.  There is also the inclusion of a Tasmanian tiger in the text . . . which is awesome.  To some degree the illustrations are almost Monster Blood Tattooish in their detail (though nobody really matches Cornish when it comes to sheer levels of dedicated minutia).

Westerfeld signed off by mentioning that once upon a time Henry James and H.G. Wells engaged in a kind of early flame war when discussing whether or not science fiction can be considered "real" literature.  A debate that has changed very little in the centuries to comes, I’m afraid.  This book, however, I will read.  There’s something to it.

Simon Pulse

All right.  Enough pussyfooting around.  Let’s get this show on the road!  First up, the Simon Pulse crew.  These fine n’ fancy folks wasted no time in hot-footing it up to the podium to begin their previewin’.  Pulse sort of traffics in YA fare, so I wasn’t entirely up and with it, but I do know a couple basics.

Appropriately enough (and along similar lines), Aladdin is releasing new Fear Street novels for the kids with covers that made me curious.  Is Brandon Dorman doing the Fear Street covers as well as the new Goosebumps ones?  Unclear.  Note to Self: Find out later.

Quickie question about the M!X line at Aladdin.  First off… was it always spelled M!X?  I think I missed that note in my previous reports.  We were looking at the new Devon Delaney book called (appropriately enough) Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better and I noticed that the author, Lauren Barnholdt, had written a previous novel called Four Truths and a Lie.  I’d not heard of it before, but as titles go I really like that one!

Little Simon

One of the finer offerings at this preview was a peek at Matthew Reinhart’s A Pop-Up Book of Nursery Rhymes.  Man that dude’s gorgeous . . er, his books.  His books are gorgeous.  Right.  Second one.  *cough*  Pop-up nursery rhymes feel intuitive when you talk about them too, so it’s funny I can’t think of any particularly good ones until now.  Huh.

Now I had heard that David Carter was adding to his elaborate, incredibly pop-up book series with White Noise.  I guess I was just unaware as to why it is even called that.  Apparently for each two-page spread you lift "the white element" (?) and you get a whole new sound.  Librarians everywhere will be chuckling bitterly over this book’s ironic title, I suspect.  But then, if we can handle dying copies of The Very Quiet Cricket, we can handle anything.  Some of you out there know what I’m talking about.

The name of the game these days?  Reissues done in padded board book editions with gilded edges.  How else to explain the dual release of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen (which is good since our copies have pretty much been read to death) and Bear of My Heart by Joanne Ryder, amongst others?

As Little Simon spoke I flipped ahead in my catalog and looked at some of their Dora the Explorer releases.  Now, here’s my question about Dora.  Remember when they were going to make an older Dora character and give her a show?  Did that utterly fail?  I know it came out, but I never see older Dora merchandise.  Always with the younger.  I have to assume that tween Dora ain’t what the kids dig these days.

Sometimes it makes me sad that other publishers have nothing to compare with Penguin’s wonderfully ridiculous Magic Kitten series.  Then I turned a page and saw the page holding The Wonder Pets books.  And there, right on page 115, was this:

Wow.  I think it’s the boots that get me the most.

Paula Wiseman Books

Absent was the delightful Alex Penfold, I’m afraid.  Apparently that particular editor was at a writer’s conference that day.  Sad.

First things first.  We deal with the magnificent duality of one Mr. Stephen T. Johnson.  On the one hand you have the man writing books like the risky A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet.  Lofty.  Then, on the other, you have his awesome interactive books like My Little Red Toolbox and (my personal favorite) My Big Yellow Taxi.  And the crazy thing is that the libraries fall for ’em every time.  We can’t help it!  We know we shouldn’t buy and circulate them because they loose their pieces too easily, but they’re so much fun we can’t help it.  We must look at them firsthand.  In the case of his newest book, My Little Red Fire Truck, I suspect that Mr. Johnson was inspired by the S&S boardroom (they know what I’m talking about).  Geez.  I want this book.  Not for a kid or anything, but because I want to play with it myself.  It lets you pump gas!  Whee!

Fun facts about Louise the Big Cheese by Elise Primavera and illustrated by Diane Goode.  According to the folks speaking, the character of Louise really is Elise.  And her quiet best friend Fern?  That’s Diane Goode all over.  I wonder how often author/illustrators pair up so neatly to their creations.  You might be able to make a case for Smith & Scieszka’s Cowboy and Octopus, maybe . . . nah.  For the record, I’m rather fond of these Louise books.  They make for a nice alternative to Fancy Nancy and (according to the pubs) provide "a bridge between traditional picture books and Clementine".  Doesn’t matter where you go.  Clementine is always the standard.  The second book in this series is Louise the Big Cheese and the La-Di-Da Shoes and #3 is Louise the Big Cheese and the Oh La La Charm School.

When discussing Toni Morrison & Slade Morrison’s Peeny Butter Fudge, it was mentioned that Ms. Morrison is due to be the keynote speaker at ALA for 2010 in D.C.   Even better (to my mind) is the fact that her next collaboration is going to be with illustrator Sean Qualls.  Woot!  Go, Sean, go!

Lee Harper, of the rather adorable Woolbur lo these many years ago, has a sledding story in the works called (appropriately enough) Snow! Snow! Snow!  In other news, The Teashop Girls (which I read and enjoyed but never quite had a chance to review) has a new paperback cover that, interestingly enough, has gotten rid of the cute redheaded girl.  And here I thought all the covers these days were going from inanimate objects TO human faces.  This one has gone backwards so that you’re now looking at a teapot and a dessert.  Whatever the case, all I care is that the new cover has a slice of cake on it.  And I want it.

Brief mention was also made of a Spring 2010 book that I think probably has the word "Caldecott" sprayed all over it, back to front.  It’s Kadir Nelson illustrating Donna Jo Napoli, so right there you have a dynamic duo.  In terms of being meaningful, the book is about the woman who planted trees in Africa.  And then to top it all off, Mr. Nelson has decided to go all collage-ish on us.  I predict great things for Mama Miti.  Great things.

Beach Lane

Newbie imprint Beach Lane Books was up next, complete with phone call from Allyn Johnston in San Diego.

In my recent round-up of Newbery/Caldecott predictions I suppose I was remiss in not mentioning All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee as a potential contender.  Folks who love Ms. Frazee’s work to begin with adore this title, and then there’s Scanlon’s writing to consider as well.  A quiet book, certainly.  We’ll see where it goes from here.

Now I was very impressed by a video I saw of Mem Fox reading The Goblin and the Empty Chair recently.  Aw, heck.  See it for yourself.

  I’ve actually seen Weezer Changes the World by David McPhail first-hand, though I know the book isn’t due out until December.  It’s a picture book wherein a puppy learns to talk and then proceeds to go about making the world a better place.  Basically what you’re looking at here is Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace meets Flowers for Algernon meets… uh…. Martha Speaks.  I think that’s a fair comparison.

Naturally, no Beach Lane presentation is complete without at least some love for Jan Thomas.  I finally had gotten my hands on Can You Make a Scary Face? (hellooooo, future storytime companion) and then discovered that this November we’ll be seeing Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny.  Yep.  The sequel to Rhyming Dust Bunnies.  I know somebody who cannot wait for this one, and her name rhymes with Etsy Snurd.

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Okay.  Fast forward in time.  The preview is done and I’m back in my library with the kids in the bookgroup I run.  I hold before their faces this cover.

Guess Again! got promoted at this point.  And really, when you’re promoting a Mac Barnett / Adam Rex collaboration the only smart thing to do is to read aloud from the book.  So they did.  It’s a title that subverts the whole guessing game concept of certain picture books.  Kids who are old enough to be surprised go gaga over it.  I know this to be true.  I have seen the results.  Plus there are robots and yetis in there, and what could possibly be cooler than robots and yetis?

A tip of my hat at this time to illustrator Frank Morrison.  Frank Morrison doesn’t get enough respect, to my mind.  Sure, he got a Coretta Scott King Honor for Jazzy Miz Mozetta and all, but we need to do more to get his household name status up there.  At the moment he has illustrated a celebrity picture book (Long Shot), which is always a risky enterprise.  In this particular case it’s by a short basketball player (6 feet) named Chris Paul and the story is about . . . . well it looks like it’s about him as a short kid.

The newest Mother-Daughter Book Club title by Heather Vogel Frederick is out right now.  Called Dear Pen Pal in it the gals are reading Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy by Jean Webster, which is rather a gutsy move on the author’s part.  She could easily have stuck to the well-known titles, but Webster was her passion so Webster it was.  Frederick even went so far as to go to Vassar to look at the papers that Webster had left behind, so as to research this book.  Special sneak peek note:  #4 is going to be called Pies and Prejudice. Mmmm.  Pie.

Quickie question: Are Santat and Gutman going to be paired up for a while here?  I am referring, of course, to author Dan Gutman and illustrator Dan Santats.  The Dans have been doing a fair amount of covers here, and I just wondered if the newest collaboration (The Christmas Genie) was a sign of more things to come.

Angela DiTerlizzi, wife of Spider(wick) Man Tony, debuts with a collaboration with the man in question.  Meno = a space elf sporting a beanie and a sweater vest / tie combo.  Meno also = a kind of vintage 50s/60s look that I’ve never seen DiTerlizzi attempt before.

Spells by Emily Gravett may be the latest Gravett-related title on this side of the pond, but over in her native England she cranks out something like three books a year.  That means our Yank publisher is perfectly happy parceling out what we get over here.  In this particular case, the book is a twisted fairy tale that utilizes that old split-page format.  Split-page format books are fun but they so rarely have any kind of a real plot associated with them.  Methinks kids and grownups will be getting a kick out of this one (if they can deal with the naked, but artfully disguised, prince, of course).

Here’s another example of something that went down with my children’s bookgroup.  I was handing out swag to the kids, merry as you please, when one of them found a promotional bookmark for The Monstrumologist, by Rick Yancy.  "Do you have this?" he asked, thrilled to the core.  The kid is nine-years-old so I was more than a little relieved to say, "Nope!"  Not that I think that this will be a bad book or anything.  But once you hear the plot you’re going to be less than inclined to hand over a story where  . . . well.  Let’s just say it is VERY YA.  The cover may make it look like it’s similar to The Pickle King by Rebecca Promitzer too.  Hey!  Let’s pair the two together to see what they look like side-by-side:

Blood Ninja by Nick Lake
 
Why is this my favorite book?  Because it can only mean one thing.

Ninjas.
Meet.
Vampires.

Oh, like you didn’t see this one coming.  Think about it!  They come out at night.  They’re both silent.  I guess after Vampirates it was inevitable, but I dunno.  What other vampire-related genres are left to plunder?  Dinosaur vampires, for one.  Ballet vampires.  Boy spy vampires.  The possibilities are endless.

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Note: Somebody on this panel had amazing red shoes.  But the editors rarely introduced themselves or their teams so I can’t credit the owner.  Whoever it was, NICE SHOES!

Okay.  Serious business now.  We here in the library community are very excited over a little title that, had I the foresight and wherewithal, I would have reviewed for Columbus Day this year.  Called Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491 by Charles C. Mann, this is a hot non-fiction title.  Visually: Stunning.  Research: Amazing.  The book covers The Americas prior to Columbus, talks about things like how slash and burn was invented, why the Europeans were as successful as they were, and other topics you just don’t see much of anywhere else.  Me want.

Re: Amelia Rules – Yay yay yay!  A Very Ninja Christmas by Jimmy Gownley (as opposed to A Very Blood Ninja Christmas… hee hee) is out now and that makes me happy.  The corners include a flip book showing Amelia and Pajamaman dancing (how Calvin & Hobbes, eh?) and there’s even a little To/From in the front for those of you who need graphic novel stocking stuffers.  I’m sorry.  I meant to say AWESOME graphic novel stocking stuffers.  I am hooked on this series.  Now if I can just get my library system to BUY it . . .

Reasons to read The Islands of the Blessed by Nancy Farmer:

1.  If you read Sea of Trolls and The Land of Silver Apples then you probably want some closure.
2.  It’s Nancy Farmer.  So right there, you know you’re in good hands.
3.  Two words: Vengeful mermaid.  Nuff said.

Sidenote:  There’s a character in the books named "Father Severus"?  Kinda ballsy of Farmer to use that name, don’t you think?  Huh.

There’s a new Patricia McLachlan title out as well these days, and again we’re looking at something with a holiday feel.  The True Gift: A Christmas Story pairs MacLachlan with Brian Floca, so that’s noteworthy.  And this book is very much in the vein of Sarah, Plain and Tall (though not in that particular series) in terms of length.  It’s about finding a friend for a cow.  Aw.

I listened to the description of You and Me and Home Sweet Home by George Ella Lyon, and what it sounded like more than anything else was A Chair for My Mother.  Only in this particular case the story has more of a Habitat for Humanity vibe.  Cool.

Hazel by Julie Hearn is a companion to Hearn’s previous novel Ivy, but it is not a sequel.  I suspect that book jacket will lure a certain kind of soul in.  After all, it features a beautiful Kate Winslet-ish girl.  And though the plot sounded like very dark historical fiction fare (a girl finds out what it means that her family is "in sugar" when she goes to their island plantation) it’s supposed to be funny too.  YA in any case.

Margaret K. McElderry Books

  According to MediaBistro, you want to know who the bestselling poet of our time is?  Ellen Hopkins.  I guess her free verse novels count, and the newest one on the shelves is Tricks.  The name pretty much says it all.  This was a book I had in my bag when I spoke to my children’s book group and the 14-year-old saw it.  She asked to read it and I told her it was some hardcore stuff, but she’s mature (and technically YA anyway) so she’s giving it a read for me right now.  If she becomes a Hopkins fan she’ll be in good company too.  Apparently Hopkins fans are a die-hard rabid crew who essentially begged her to write this novel.

I would like to know who the smart aleck was who made sure that Firefighter Ted appear on the left-hand page of the catalog with One of the Survivors by Susan Shaw on the right.  Why is this strange?  Do another side-by-side comparison of the covers:

Anyone else noticed that this has been a great year for ponies?  Between Highway Robbery by Kate Thompson, The Georges and the Jewels by Jane Smiley, and now this new Joan Hiatt Harlow title, we are horsied up!  I love the title of this book in particular, though.  Secret of the Night Ponies.  Ideally it would be a mystery, but I’m not sure that’s actually the case.  Seems to be more about pony rescue.  Ah well.

You know what’s wrong with kids today?  They have no appreciation for bunions!  Marsha Hayles and Jack E. Davis seek to remedy that problem, however, with a picture book going by the name of Bunion Burt.  Wow.  Just… ow.

And that, as they say, was that.  I don’t have many preview awards to hand out, but there is one that comes to mind . . .