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The first in a series of mini-reports on my trip to the New York SCBWI Winter conference:

I did something geeky last Friday. I went to the Central Children's Room at the Donnell branch of the New York Public Library and asked to see a copy of my book. I was just going to peek at it on the shelves and marvel that my book (MY book!) was in the same building as the original stuffed animals from Winnie the Pooh, Wyeth paintings, and a Newbery medal.

But my surreptitious plan didn't work. The librarian on duty insisted upon doing her job and helping me. It turns out that Letters From Rapunzel at this particular branch was non-circulating, and The Most Helpful Librarian in the World jumped right up and went to the back stacks to pull it for me.

Really, I didn't mean to make her leave her desk and go fetch my own book! It's not like I haven't seen it before. But I hadn't seen it in a library in New York before, and I really did want to. Maybe because I went to kindergarten in NY. Maybe because I went to the library often in NY. (Although not the Donnell branch, sadly, according to my mom and dad. More likely the local Queens branch.) Or maybe because I'm a total library geek.

Anyhow, I held it, stroked its shiny library cover, and fantasized about filling the white space on the title page with a pithy literary comment, my non-trembling signature, and the date: Feb. 8, 2008. Then, I reluctantly gave it back to the Most Helpful Librarian. Turns out that I screwed THAT up.

Because later that night, at the KidLit Drinks get-together, I talked with Betsy Bird, librarian at the same famous Donnell Children's Room, and blogger as Fuse 8 (read her detailed post about Donnell here,) and she said: Oh, did you sign your book?

WHAT? I could've written in a library book? Really? *sigh*

On the other hand, I did do some things right on my visit to Donnell. I inspected Eeyore's tail and marveled at Tigger's realistic stripes. I signed Pooh's guest book. I eavesdropped on a play being rehearsed in a back room. I said a little prayer before the plain, matter-of-fact sign reading: In Memoriam: Madeleine L'Engle and Lloyd Alexander (among others.) I peered through the window of an office at a model of the Little Cabin in the Woods, and longed to move the figures around in a dance to a fiddle tune. I oohed over the Mary Poppins books and umbrella.

Most of all, I left feeling grateful for the chance to stand in a place where I could picture myself as a child, rushing in the door, running over to the new books, getting lost in all the choices, visiting old favorites on the shelves, and leaving with an armful of the best of the best. I wouldn't have noticed if an author had been standing there, holding her own book. Except of course, if it was a book I wanted to read. And then I would've thought: HEY! WEIRDO! Are you done with that?

P.S. The building that holds the Donnell branch has been sold. Betsy Bird has been gathering memories of the Children's Reading Room. If you have a good story, please get it to her here.

Welcome home from Winter Institute, booksellers! From all I've heard already, this year in Louisville was just as invigorating a session as last year in Portland. Here's where you can find out more:

The lovely Lori Kauffman of Brookline Booksmith was live blogging from WI3 on her blog, Brookline Blogsmith; check it out for some impressions of Danny Meyer's opening presentation on hospitality vs. service, Gary Hirschberg's bit on saving the world while making a living, some bookseller/librarian conspiring, and Lori's pick of the galleys. And I suspect there's more to come -- the intensity of the programming can make it impossible to find time to blog, so sometimes it's all about the recap afterward.

Dan Cullen of the ABA was also live blogging on the ABA blog, Omnibus, and has posted exhaustive coverage of the whole thing, Thursday to Saturday, plus lots of pictures. Dan humbly admits the difficulty of finding time or a single perspective on a weekend that includes "24 educational sessions, 12 rep picks' sessions, 3 keynote addresses, an author reception... and a closing reception", but he also does a killer job of capturing a weekend of "flow", that state of concentrated bliss when you're working so well on the work you love that time doesn't seem to exist. (Here's one of my favorite pictures, of three of my Emerging Leaders Council cohorts: Susan Weiss, Sylla McClellan, and Sweet Pea Flaherty. I know Megan Sullivan was also there; can't wait to hear all about it, guys!)

And of course, today's Shelf Awareness has the first in a series of articles recapping the experience and lessons of WI3, written by John Mutter and Susan Weiss. Looking forward to vicariously absorbing those lessons through them.

(And yes, incidentally, there is a little bit about yours truly and my terrific Wednesday night in there too... thanks for the mention!)

Again, I'd love to get a bookseller or two to write here about Winter Institute: their overall experience, a specific session or topics, or even the people you met. Send me an email or leave a comment if you'd like to be a guest poster.


In the meantime, I was surprised and gratified to read an article in the New York Times this weekend that actually rebutted the "no one reads anymore" opinion -- in an article reviewing the Amazon Kindle. Apparently about two weeks ago Steve Jobs of Apple made an already infamous statement when asked about the Kindle and whether Apple would be looking to get into the e-reader business:

"�It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

In the Times piece, Randall Stross politely but thoroughly demolishes this absurdity, and ends with a challenge for those of us in what we now call "the book business". Here's the passage -- I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

To Mr. Jobs, this statistic dooms everyone in the book business to inevitable failure.

Only the business is not as ghostly as he suggests. In 2008, book publishing will bring in about $15 billion in revenue in the United States, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association.

One can only wonder why, by the Study Group’s estimate, 408 million books will be bought this year if no one reads anymore?

A survey conducted in August 2007 by Ipsos Public Affairs for The Associated Press found that 27 percent of Americans had not read a book in the previous year. Not as bad as Mr. Jobs’s figure, but dismaying to be sure. Happily, however, the same share — 27 percent — read 15 or more books.

In fact, when we exclude Americans who had not read a single book in that year, the average number of books read was 20, raised by the 8 percent who read 51 books or more. In other words, a sizable minority does not read, but the overall distribution is balanced somewhat by those who read a lot.

If a piece of the book industry’s $15 billion seems too paltry for Mr. Jobs to bother with, he is forgetting that Apple reached its current size only recently. Last week, Apple reported that it posted revenue of $9.6 billion in the quarter that spanned October to December 2007, its best quarter ever, after $24 billion in revenue in the 2007 fiscal year, which ended in September.

But as recently as 2001, before the iPhone and the iPod, Apple was a niche computer company without a mass market hit. It was badly hurt by the 2001 recession and reported revenue of only $5.3 billion for the year. This is, by coincidence, almost exactly what Barnes & Noble reported in revenue for its 2007 fiscal year. In neither case did the company owners look at that number, decide to chain the doors permanently shut and call it quits.

Amazon does not release details about revenue for books, but books were its first business. And Andrew Herdener, a company spokesman, said that Amazon’s book sales “have increased every year since the company began.”

The book world has always had an invisible asset that makes up for what it lacks in outsize revenue and profits: the passionate attachment that its authors, editors and most frequent customers have to books themselves. Indeed, in this respect, avid book readers resemble avid Mac users.

The object we are accustomed to calling a book is undergoing a profound modification as it is stripped of its physical shell. Kindle’s long-term success is still unknown, but Amazon should be credited with imaginatively redefining its original product line, replacing the book business with the reading business.

I work with some amazing people. One of whom is Jesse Karp. Jesse is currently in library school, and he knows comics and graphic novels like nobody else. He is my go-to guy on most things illustrated. While I can say that I am a comic fan, he is an expert. He has been collecting comics for the last 30 years, is the leader of our in school graphic novel club, and recently was a guest speaker on the topic of graphic novels at CUNY's Queens College.

This is Jesse's take on The Arrival, by Tan.



I first set eyes on The Arrival by Shaun Tan in my colleague's stack of review books. Flipping through it was enough to ignite a spark of burning jealousy within me. This could easily have lead to a breakdown of professional relations had Booklist not sent me my own review copy shortly thereafter.

Tan's small but powerful body of work often depicts young children caught in surreal, super-industrial landscapes, sometimes trapped, sometimes oblivious to the dystopia that surrounds them. Have a look at The Lost Thing or The Red Tree to see what I mean.

The Arrival encompasses this sensibility but expands and deepens it to such a degree that the book reaches a level seldom seen within the graphic novel (or any) format: visual literature.

Using the tools of sequential art like a life-long pro, Tan employs visual metaphor, panel size, lighting and color to make the archetypal experience of an immigrant leaving his family and coming to a new land personal, emotional, heart-breaking, breathtaking and joyful. The fantasy landscapes Tan depicts are both terrifying and awe-inspiring for their size and complexity, and every person the immigrant meets tells an involving tale of his or her own. We are drawn into this journey, into this land as if we ourselves were the arrival, unable to read the writing, understand the traditions, comprehend the complexity of the city, heart-broken over the departure from our family. And Tan does this all without using a single word.

The silence makes every experience within it resonate more profoundly as this new world affords the arrival fear and confusion, but also new friends and a new life. A first-grader could look at this and get hooked on the simple story and complex images, but the older the reader the greater the understanding of the emotional, social and political nuances Tans plays out here. Expanding the potential of the medium itself, The Arrival is without a doubt the best graphic novel of the year and possible the best graphic novel ever (okay, in the top ten, anyway).

If graphic novels aren't your thing, or you only look at one or two a year, for God's sake, put this on your list.

--Jesse Karp

Carolyn Bennett is one of my favorite people in the book industry. She's a sales rep at BookStream, a youngish independent wholesaler (and sends out their great e-newsletter), and works part time at Oblong Books in upstate New York. She also belongs to a wonderful bookselling family: her sister Whitney works for HarperCollins, and her parents John and Betty Bennett are the proprietors of Bennett Books in Wyckoff, New Jersey. I've been lucky to get to know both John and Betty through NAIBA, and they're some of my bookselling role models.

Last week, Carolyn told me Bennett Books has made the decision to close at the end of September. The closing of an indie bookstore is always a hard thing to grapple with, and I think Carolyn's own words do it better than mine could. The following is also published in today's Shelf Awareness and on Carolyn's blog.

Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later

Back in 1988, my ten-year-old heart burst with a secret. My parents were going to open a bookstore. All they needed was a location, shelves, and books, and we were going to be in business! After harboring this secret for months, the plan finally came to fruition, and I was allowed to tell my friends that my town of Wyckoff, New Jersey was finally getting its own bookstore and my parents were opening it! Thus began two decades of an extremely successful bookstore.

In the past few days, my heart has been bursting with another piece of news. Because of recent rent increases, flat book sales, the explosion of the internet, and the high cost of much needed capital improvements, it is impossible for the store to remain in business. Bennett Books will be closed by September 30, 2007.

In the past nineteen years, I've been filled with pride for my parents' achievements. From the first book sold (The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump), to the day they finally had enough books to fill the shelves, and the two times that burgeoning stock allowed them to expand the size of the store, to the time they proudly sold and displayed The Satanic Verses, as well as Sex by Madonna despite threats of a boycott called for in a sermon given by a small-minded local pastor, to the time they found a loophole in Bergen County's blue laws which allowed them to sell books on Sundays when the chains on the highway closed (and still do) like the rest of the malls, and throughout their participation in the American Booksellers Association and the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association, The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the Chamber of Commerce, my parents, John and Betty Bennett, have been outstanding booksellers. It's deeply unfortunate that all great things cannot last, and while I'm devastated to see my favorite bookstore go, I remain confident that independent bookselling will remain an important part of our country and communities.

The world has changed by leaps and bounds since 1988, and I don't think that anything will stop the free distribution of information on the internet, which creates formidable competition for booksellers. Even I have downloaded recipes and travel instructions instead of looking them up in a book. Despite the competition, the traditional book is not dead, and some bookstores are finding creative ways to evolve with technology. But this is not the only obstacle booksellers face.

Recently, I had a conversation with my mother about where she purchased books before the store opened. Her answer was that she, like her neighbors, had to drive to other towns, or to the mall, or not purchase books at all. Now that Bennett Books is closing, residents will yet again have to drive long distances to buy books instead of making the short trip to the town center. In the past year, almost every publisher has released at least one book about the importance of buying locally for the sake of the environment and the economy. It would be a shame if they don't make the connection that they have the power to help prevent independent bookstores from closing, and keep these vital community businesses alive. With pricing and terms that would allow independents to compete with chains, it would prevent the ever centralization of book distribution and allow local businesses to stay in business. This would be good for communities, individuals and the publishing industry itself. Unfortunately, it's too late for the people of Wyckoff, NJ, because starting October 1st, they will no longer be be able to buy their books from a local retailer.

Carolyn Bennett

Why hello there Neil Gaiman blog readers! This is the wonderful Maddy Gaiman, and I have some simply fabulous news. For the next two weeks, while my father and I are in Budapest I shall be guest blogging! Dad might add in some stuff here and there but I’m sure you are all simply jumping out of your seats in excitement knowing that you shall be reading things written by me. :P We are on the plane at the moment and have just finished eating a delicious breakfast. I had a blueberry scone, strawberry yogurt, fresh fruit, and orange juice. Tasty, tasty. Soon we shall arrive in the Amsterdam airport, where we will either go into Holland or just hang out in the Airline Lounge for our several hour stopover (I’ll report back on which was chosen), and from there proceed on to Budapest, Hungary. Why are we going to Budapest you ask yourself? Ahh... I shall tell you. It is because we are going to be hanging out on the film set of Hellboy 2, I believe. You see, my dearest father is friends with the director, (not sure how to spell his very long Mexican name), and the next thing I know we are jetting off to Europe only a week after I have gotten out of school for the summer! Crazy talk! So as I’ve said you will be hearing all (or most of at least) the updates from Budapest from yours truly. Have a magnificent day. ☺

UPDATE: Now, being in the hotel I have Internet access and can report that my father and I sat in the KLM lounge in Amsterdam airport for about 3 hours.




We just had dinner in a good sushi restaurant but I wasn’t very hungry so I didn’t eat that much... I am fully stuffed now though. Oh, and I am pretty darn tired because of the fact that I didn’t sleep on the plane and therefore my only sleep in the last 29 hours was 40 minutes in the lounge (see photo above where I am wearing dad's leather jacket because it was chilly in there), 60 minutes on the plane from Amsterdam to Budapest, and 3 hours in the hotel room before my dad woke me up to go for a little walk outside the hotel. Okay so maybe I’m not lacking sleep THAT much but I am still quite sleepy. I’m sorry this was a rather uneventful entry but it will be better tomorrow. I promise.