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Experienced booksellers and book collectors have come upon the front flaps of dust jackets with the top or bottom corner clipped, yet, strangely the books’ price still evident on the uncut corner. Why is the DJ’s corner cut off and the price still evident? Why cut the book’s corner at all?

This mystery is explained by Dan Gregory at ILAB in his article “Why Are Some Dustjackets Clipped but Not Price-Clipped?“.

[...] this copy had four different prices on the front flap (clockwise from the top they were $3.95, $3.75, $4.50, and $4.95). By printing four prices in such a manner, the publisher, W.W. Norton, could leave the decision of the final retail price until later in the publication process.

After the books were printed, and just before the printed jackets were to be folded onto the bound books, two or three cuts to a stack of printed jacket sheets could quickly eliminate the unused prices. It also allowed the publisher, if he were so inclined, to market the book at different retail values in different areas.

In over twenty years of collecting books, this is the first time I have ever seen a book – thank Dan for the photo – with four different prices on the front flap. There are many books in my library with two prices, one top and one bottom, with unclipped front flaps, but none with four prices.

Dan explains that the dust jacket corners are cut by machine which is understandable when dealing with thousands upon thousands of books.

For children’s book collectors, I suppose one of the rare unclipped first editions would be Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. In addition to the correct copy on the DJ flaps (i.e. no mention of the Caldecott Award), my copy has “$3.50″ on the top right of the front flap, which matches the description in the Hanrahan bibliography, and has the bottom right corner cut off. Hanrahan states:

It has a price of $3.50 (Horn Book mentions a library edition at $3.79) on the inside front flap [...]

I’ve never seen or heard of a copy of Where The Wild Things Are with an unclipped dust jacket, which includes the “$3.50″ trade price on the top right corner, and the “$3.79″ library edition price on the bottom right.

Introduction

Taken as a whole, this website provides collectors and booksellers with the context in the collectible children’s book market for specific first edition picturebooks. This context is based upon the intermingling of two primary ingredients, the relative scarcity and the collectibility of the book. The relative scarcity of a first edition book is a function of the demand and supply equilibrium in the market. The collectibility of a book is a potpourri of Factors Affecting Collectibility, which we first described in Chapter 2 of the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide. From Chapter 2:

Note the key factors that impact the collectibility of the books. Each is a high quality story with imaginative or inventive illustrations, therefore the reading public has recurrently purchased the books for decades. Because of this, the books have stayed in print since their original publication and gone into many, many printings. Many of the books have earned a children’s picturebook award, while many of the illustrators have won numerous awards. All of the illustrators have high esteem within the book publishing market place. Many of the book’s characters became franchise characters, where one or more sequels were published, and line extensions have been made into other consumer product areas (i.e. toys, games, dolls, costumes, decorations, etc…). Lastly, many of the books or characters have crossed over into pop culture, either via a TV or feature film adaptation.

Experienced book collectors and booksellers know the relative scarcity and collectibility of a book and therefore understand its context in the hobby. This information lets them make an educated estimate for the value of the book, and depending upon which side of the ledger they reside, either purchase or sell the book at a fair price. As an experienced book collector I continually make context based buy-side decisions.

To help readers establish their own context, over the next couple of articles I’m going to develop a list of the Top 100 Collectible Children’s Picturebooks and explain the rationale for each book. After the list is completed, the reader should have a good understanding of the context I use to classify most first edition picturebooks. Selecting the books would be easy if value was used as the sole criteria. I would simply sort the 25,000 books in the database by value and select the top 100.

Criteria for Top 100 Collectible Children’s Picturebooks

The basis for selecting the books for the list are the six Factors Affecting Collectibility (numbered for reference purposes only, not meant as a prioritization), with three added factors. Click on the factor to read a detailed definition.

1. Aesthetic Quality of the Illustrations and the Story
2. Eminence of the Illustrator
3. 1st – Early – Late in the illustrator’s body of work.
• Is the book a notable illustrator’s first work?
• Is the book early in their career?
• Is the book late in their career?
4. Collectibility of the Author
• Add a Comment

By nature not an overreactor, but fearing for the lead-free life of my children, their children, and children in near and far locales, including Eastville in southwestern North Dakota, decided to part with my five thousand or so collectible children's book collection. The value of the collection, the vast majority first editions, some rare, some unique, with fifty pieces of original artwork - paintings, sketches, watercolors - pales in comparison to the risk of a child, in some distant future, ingesting any of the works as lunch. Lamenting the absence of even a single certificate attesting to the lead-free status of one of the books, I curse the publishing houses of year's past with their backward looking ways. Couldn't they have foreseen the rise of China and spontaneous outbreak of lead dastardly embedded in our children's products? It would have been so obvious fifty years ago, clear as forecasting tomorrow's stock market.

I was perplexed for days thinking of a surefire method to rid the earth of this unwanted horde. The objective was zero risk of a first edition Cat In The Hat ever becoming a baby's teething blanket, since the collection might be disbursed upon my death or dismemberment. Or sale, god forbid. My aroused conscious led to months of sleepless nights anticipating the ban on selling of children's books on eBay, Amazon, and the like. So proactively ridding myself of the demon host of books will release the inner anxieties worrying about the infallible Pope-like decisions from the intelligent and very clued-in managers of aforementioned entities, who are certain to follow the letter of the law. No, the method of destruction must be total, not just minimizing the risk of one of my first editions becoming some child's breakfast, but iron-clad zero tolerance, similar to how effectively corporate policy prevents the viewing of pornography on one's work computer.

Securing space on a rocket ship is no small endeavor. For one, the charges are in large part calculated by weight. Five thousand children's books weigh more than a mouse, but less than a house. The relative neighborhood is four tons, somewhere north of eight thousand pounds, so mucho dineros to lift the load into the heavens. Second, most of the dad-blasted rocket blasting services send the payload up and orbit the earth, not exit earth's orbit. For goodness sake, what good is that? Having my collection orbiting the earth for perpetuity was far too risky. Why, what if space travel becomes common place in a couple of hundred years? Easily, some 7-year old could start munching on a Maurice Sendak first edition while reading a Tomi Ungerer. Had to be iron-clad, zero tolerance, rid the earth. Costs be damned.

Eventually I scheduled and commissioned an earth-orbit exiting rocketship to take this non-certificated potentially lead-laden payload of death into the bowels of the Sun. Good ol' Sol never let anyone down, been burning for millions of years. Hot too, to the tune of twenty-seven million degrees Fahrenheit. That will roast a wiener or two, and burn like hell the condemned. No trial was necessary, the books a victim of their certifiableless past.

No regrets while watching the rocket leave the launch pad then into the high atmosphere of the sky before disappearing from sight. Only relief that justice had indeed been served, children saved, my soul redeemed. And much thankfulness for the Solomon-like wisdom written into the Public Law 110-314, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

For more on how 'CPSIA of 2008' impacts bookselling, please see Bookshop Blog.

Where Have All The Books Gone?

Based upon our experience, there are fewer key collectible picturebooks on the online market than a year ago, continuing a trend we have seen over the past couple of years.

Try a search on any of the metasearch book finding websites, such as ABEBooks, Addall, Bookfinder, or the ABAA, for first edition Caldecott Medal books, or Beginner Books, or I Can Read Books, or Seuss books. Sort the results from high price to low price (the thought being the high priced books would most likely be first editions), and see how many books turn up. The results will show that many first edition books are not currently being offered for sale.

Money Can’t Buy Everything

We publish a search for the first twenty Caldecott Medal books three or four times a year (we perform the search monthly, and publish it less frequently). We last published the survey in February, and the results were a bit eye opening.

For the first twenty Caldecott Medal books, in first edition format, seven of the titles were not being offered for sale! We found only 27 individual copies for sale, with four copies of 1952 winner The Biggest Bear being offered (several incorrectly I suspect, since the $2.75 price on the DJ flap is required to identify a true first printing).

If one were to extend the search to cover all of the seventy Caldecott Medal books, perhaps as many as 15-to-20 would not be for sale on the market as first edition books.

In a world in which money can buy nearly everything, it could not buy a complete set of first edition Caldecott Medal books!

Given the proper monetary motivation, a book scout could probably find and purchase a complete set of first edition Caldecott Medal books. Probably. It would take upwards of a year, even for the well connected book scout, and cost $60-to-$80,000 (in the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide, we value the set of first edition Caldecott Medal books at $52,000 in Very Good plus condition).

Somewhere, yet Nowhere: Other Key Children’s Books

Try searching for key early franchise books from such staples as Curious George, or Madeline, Harold and the Purple Crayon, or Babar. The first edition books are not available. A key example is a first edition Curious George. One has recently surfaced for sale, and will be auctioned in July by PBA Galleries. It is very likely to reach $10,000, however some have thought as high as $20,000! There are no auction records for a first edition Curious George, and it’s been seven years since one has surfaced for sale.

Try searching for specific illustrator books, such as Marjorie Flack or Robert McCloskey, or Jean de Brunhoff, or Wanda Gag, or Virginia Lee Burton, or Roger Duvoisin, or Hardie Gramatky, or Lois Lenski, or the d’Aulaire’s, Petersham’s, or Hader’s. The more common first edition books are found for sale, however the scarcer editions are not surfacing on a regular basis, if at all.

The first edition books exist, however they exist somewhere in collector’s bookshelves, and are nowhere to be found in booksellers’ inventory.

As Values Increase, Supply Will Increase

Market values will have to rise in order for the supply of key first edition books to surface. This seems counterintuitive. Key first edition books have been absorbed by collectors, or could be in bookseller’s inventory, yet are not surfacing for sale. As prices in the market rise, some of these books will become available for sale.

We’ve seen a slight increase in values since our initial price guide was published, and the next edition (due in early 2008) will reflect this marginal increase. However, the price guide will only reflect the prices in the market, and cannot be anticipatory of where prices might escalate.

As the bookselling public becomes better informed of the values of key children’s books, and the knowledge slowly seaps into the conscious of the general population, more first edition books will surface. We hope.

Next: State of The Hobby, Part III: The New Class of Bookselling Masses

Earlier we posted a column titled “What Books To Collect,” which provided several categories of books or illustrators for various economic levels of collecting. Today and over the next couple of posts, we would like to discuss the state of the children’s picturebook collecting hobby, and provide some background information on the current market place.

A Hobby In It’s Infancy

The hobby of collecting first edition contemporary picturebooks is in it’s infancy. In support of this claim:

1.   There are only a handful of collectible children’s bookselling specialists, and many concentrate their efforts on older antiquarian material.

2.   The number of children’s book collectors today is relatively small, as compared to the number we anticipate will participate in the future.

3.   The majority of the adult population do not consider first edition children’s picturebooks to have substantial monetary value. The hobby is somewhat analogous to comic books and baseball cards during the infancy of the respective hobbies.

·         Just twenty years ago people were throwing away vintage baseball cards because there was no public perception of value. Today, many baseball cards from the 1950’s and 1960’s are worth thousands of dollars. (Note: Mickey Mantle’s 1952 Topps baseball card is valued at $15,000- $20,000.)

·         Just thirty years ago you could find discarded comic books from the 1940’s for sale for a pittance in used books and thrift stores, because there was no public perception of value. Today, Superman and Batman comic books from the 1940’s are worth tens of thousands; early Spiderman comics from the 1960’s are worth thousands (Note: Action #1, the 1937 first appearance of Superman. Is valued in the hundreds of thousands.)

I am not suggesting the value of first edition children’s picturebooks will reach the astonomical prices of rare comic books; only presenting the above as somewhat analogous situations. Hyperbole and I are not usually compatible.

4.   The majority of elementary school teachers and librarians, the group closest to the hobby, do not consider children’s picturebooks to have substantial monetary value. Not only are elementary school teachers and librarians the closest to the hobby, their reading recommendations and ‘prescriptions’ to children and parents, gained from knowledge, experience, and collegial associations, determine the long-term publication success of many of the books the hobby defines to be collectibles.

5.   The current contemporary children’s picturebook market is very Seuss-, Sendak-, and Caldecott-centric, the Big Three. The high market value of their first editions has seeped into the knowledge base of general bookselling (i.e. not limited to children’s books), therefore many, many booksellers are aware and on the lookout for examples. However the non-specialist children’s booksellers do not get much deeper than the aforementioned Big Three.

Adolescence, The Next Phase

When one takes a bird’s eye view of the current state, I think the hobby will eventually place greater emphasis on 'years-in-print' and 'copies sold' as measures of collectibility and desireability. The important collectible picturebooks are those which have stayed in print, unadulterated, for decades.

Consider Madeline, in print for 70 years, and still being read by today’s children. How many other ‘things’ are enjoyed, unchanged, seventy years after the original publication? A quick glance at Publisher’s Weekly list of all-time bestselling children’s books will show a plethora of classics which have sold millions of copies, been read to or read by tens of millions of children, and unchanged after decades.

·         Many of the books are ‘A’ list books, however many are not. Books like Marcus Pfister’s Rainbow Fish, or Margret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon, or Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or P.D. Eastman’s Go, Dog. Go!, or Laura Numeroff’s If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, or Sam McBratney’s Guess How Much I Love You?, or Jan Brett’s The Mitten, or Janell Cannon’s Stelleluna, or Marc Brown’s Arthur Goes To School. And so forth.

·         Each of these books are underappreciated in the current state of the hobby – books barely considered collectibles, and then by only a handful of collectors and booksellers. Yet, I would wager, each of these books will be in print for decades hence, to be enjoyed by millons of more children and parents in the years to come. What is the future worth of these first editions?

The Astute Collector and The Not-So-Smart Hobby

Several weeks ago we posted a column on ‘Factors Affecting Collectibility,’ identifying six key factors which impact the desireablity and value of a children’s picturebook. These factors are our personally developed list of factors, and as yet have not been vetted within the hobby. They are, how shall we say, in development.

The astute collector can leverage this period of development by focusing on books not yet held in high regard within the collectible picturebook market. What can you do? Develop your own list of factors, factors currently under weighted in the market, and target those books and types of books (the prerequisite being the books are appealing to your personally).

Currently, in its state of infancy, i.e. disjointed development, the collective intelligence of the ‘hobby’ is not nearly as smart as the astute collector. As more is written within the hobby, and knowledge shared, this gap will narrow, quickly, as the hobby matures. The collective intelligence of the children’s picturebook market will overtake that of the individual collector. But that is not today.

Next: State of The Hobby, Part II: Where Have All The Books Gone?

This blog and our website focuses on collecting and valuing first edition children’s picturebooks. We try to stay on subject as much as possible, and refrain from presenting material that strays too far from the hobby. Picturebooks are the center of our attentions.

Some of our readers - parents, teachers, educators, and feminists - will find the following research article of keen interest, Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children’s Picture Books: A 21st Century Update.

The research was performed at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, by Mykol C. Hamilton, David Anderson, Michelle Broaddus, and Kate Young. It appears to be even handed and performed without bias.

This study is based upon a sampling of 200 books published since 2001, including all Caldecott award books. The authors found a “persistence of sexism in picture books.”

We present this information not as an endorsement or indictment. Instead, for those with an interest, read the excerpt, then follow the link to read the entire research document, and develop your own thoughts, opinions, and course of action.

Abstract.

Gender stereotyping and under-representation of girls and women have been documented in children’s picture books in the past, in the hope that improvements would follow. Most researchers have analyzed award winning books. We explored sexism in top selling books from 2001 and a 7-year sample of Caldecott award winning books, for a total of 200 books.

There were nearly twice as many male as female title and main characters. Male characters appeared 53% more times in illustrations. Female main characters nurtured more than male main characters did, and they were seen in more indoor than outdoor scenes. Occupations were gender stereotyped, and more women than men appeared to have no paid occupation.

Few differences were found between Caldecott award books and other books. A comparison of our book sample to 1980s and 1990s books did not reveal reduced sexism. The persistence of sexism in picture books and implications for children and parents are discussed.

Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children’s Picture Books: A 21st Century Update

Does Sexism in Picture Books Matter?

First, common sense suggests that gender bias in books matters—that stereotyped portrayals of the sexes and under-representation of female characters contribute negatively to children’s development, limit their career aspirations, frame their attitudes about their future roles as parents, and even influence their personality characteristics.

Second, experimental research strongly suggests that gender bias in picture books is harmful to children. Schau and Scott (1984) reviewed 21 studies on the effects of sexist vs. nonsexist children’s instructional materials (e.g., male versus female characters; sexist versus nonsexist generic pronouns), and discovered a consistent tendency for sexist materials to strengthen children’s biases.

In one study (Ashton, 1978) 3-5 year old children read gender-biased or -unbiased children’s picture books. Children who read biased books later made more stereotypic toy choices. Based on these and other studies, Tognoli, Pullen, and Lieber (1994) concluded that gender bias in children’s books gives boys a sense of entitlement and lowers girls’ self-esteem and occupational aspirations. Moreover, Weitzman, Eifler, Hokada, and Ross (1972) argued that the dearth of female characters teaches both sexes that girls are less worthy than boys.

Other researchers have concluded that children’s literature provides girls and boys with standards of masculinity and femininity (Peterson & Lach, 1990), offers socially sanctioned behavioral models that children may imitate (St. Peter, 1979), and presents a basic model for understanding oneself and others (Rachlin & Vogt, 1974).

For the rest of the research article, see Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children’s Picture Books: A 21st Century Update.

Several weeks ago, we garnered a   by being tagged by Fuse #8 Production in the "Someone Believes I Think!" post.

The idea originated in February from The Thinking Blog's  tagging five blogs which make you think (for those tagged, below, click on the link to see guidelines for tagging thinking blogs).

Certainly a unique idea - "to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!" Thinking has oft been described as a mix of perspiration and hard work. To the five blogs that follow, keep the perspiration to yourselves, and a modest "thank you!" for the hard work.

Book Collectors

Kenneth Sullivan's discussion on Modern First editions, Signed Limited editions, and other book collecting topics. There are bookseller blogs galore on the web, most are, eh…, monologues? rants? diatribes?, etc..., on a variety of 'topics-of-the-week', those easy to write opinions many bloggers feel is their sacred duty to pontificate upon. Not so Book Collectors – Mr. Sullivan actually provides information related to the hobby of collecting books! For starters, try either the article  on E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime or To Kill A Mockingbird.

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast 

"Our vision for this blog is pretty simple: we’re going to talk about the books we read. We read lots of different kinds of books: picture books for toddlers, memoirs, young adult fiction, graphic novels, Man Booker Prize-winning high-art metafiction, whatever. And we’ll write about them, whenever we can, in the hopes that we can

a. let you, the reader, know about a book that you might like to read, too; and
b. inspire discussion about said books."

We love the author interviews on Seven Things, which are much more than the usual list of suspect questions. Try the MT. Anderson interview and see if you too don't get hooked.

The Brookshelf

"A children's librarian thoughts, ideas, and news about children's books from yesteryear."

Among the plethora of librarians and teacher blogs on the web, the brookshelf stands apart by providing thoughtful reviews on forgotten books, gems of the past nearly lost among the hoard of Potter wannebe's gracing the shelf of the local Barnes & Noble and such.

Bookride

"It's a guide to the most wanted and collected books. There is some evaluation of why the book is wanted, what it is worth - with a range of selling prices, some trivia, apercus and bon mots, a few anecdotes, so called jokes and occasional rants."

Nigel posts on an eclectic measure of first edition books, from Harry Potter to Kerouac's On The Road to Wuthering Heights, offering humorous opinions and anecdotes relevent to book collectors. Highly readable.

The Publishing Contrarian

Lynne W. Scanlon, the self proclaimed Wicked Witch of Publishing offers regular posts on the inside workings of the publishing industry. Not for the faint of heart, she offers brutally honest information and advice, of special importance to the prospective, as yet unpublished, author.

Wannabe Author Syndrome: Cheap, Craven & Conned?

"I am so tired of hearing unpublished writers (I won’t call a writer an author until he/she can actually show me a bound book or a buyable online version) wail about not being able to find a literary agent or get published or get readers to buy direct. Last night I practically leapt across a dinner table to throttle a wannabe author because he simply could not or would not absorb what I was telling him—that what he desperately needed was someone to assess his book and let him know if it was good or bad."

 Click on the article's title to read the rest.

April is National Autism Awareness Month and the OUPblog would like to raise awareness by sharing excerpts from two different, but equally useful books. Helping Children With Autism Learn: Treatment Approaches for Parents and Professionals, by Bryna Siegel, is a practical guide to treating the learning differences associated with Autism. Siegel, the Director of the Autism Clinic at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, gives practical guidance for fashioning a unique program for each child’s problem, effectively empowering families. In the excerpt below Siegel explains how to help verbal children use their words. Be sure to check back later today for an excerpt from Stress and Coping in Autism.

If He Understands, Why Won’t He Answer?

Autistic children need a reason to answer. “Just because I asked” is usually not a good enough reason, as that would be a more purely social reason. The probability that a child with autism will answer, or appear to comprehend or comply increases as the “instrumental press” increases. This means if the child can see that there are clearly desirable consequences to answering, and he knows how to answer, he will respond. Just as is the case when using visually based communication, it is necessary to create a situation in which the child wants to answer, or wants to ask a question because in his mind, it will get him something he wants or wants to know.

Upping the Communicative “Press.”

When the child really wants something, it is a good opportunity to increase your communication demands just a bit. If the child has just seen you open a bag of Cheetos, and he said, “Cheetos” while approaching your bag with what looks like an intention to grab the bag, this is a good time to tighten your grip on the bag and say, “Kevin, do you want Cheetos?” If Kevin replies, “Cheetos!” prompt him by touching his chest lightly with your forefinger (I’m assuming Kevin is almost on top of you by now) and saying “I want Cheetos.” If he says, “I want Cheetos,” thank him for asking, and give him a few Cheetos. I prefer “Thank you for asking!” to “Good saying ‘I want Cheetos!’” since the latter is not a grammatical sentence and can only serve to confound any emerging sense of grammatical rules. Adult responses that result in the child’s possibly echoing grammatical formulations that are not correct fails to provide available opportunity to rehearse meaning.

Depending on how many Cheetos you have, and how much Kevin likes them, this could be a good time to practice related conversational gambits like “I want more Cheetos,” and “Mom, I want more Cheetos, please.” Take advantage of the tendency to echo by developing a way of prompting an echo like touching his chest, (or cheek or lips, or touching your own lips then pointing to the child’s mouth). The prompt should model appropriate speech with just a bit more elaboration of the statement the child has generated on his own.

A common error in prompting speech revisions, however, is to take the conversation lesson too far. If the adult starts to prompt the child to “say it better,” add “please” and use a proper noun to address the person with the Cheetos, and keeps withholding the Cheetos until all these additional demands are met, it is no longer a conversation or even a conversational lesson, but just too-hard a lesson. The child is likely to give up and just walk away. The chance to prove the idea that spontaneous requesting is useful is lost. The child will have learned nothing about rules of language pragmatics, which is that you clarify an utterance only until the listener understands. It is also a key teaching opportunity in these kinds of situations for the adult to add real, natural conversational responses, like the “Kevin, do you want Cheetos?” response to an initially nonverbal communicative initiative on the child’s part (trying to grab the bag). This exposes the child to natural language models at a time when his receptivity to what is being said will be high—because he wants something.

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