May 12, 2012: The Kids Have Voted
Votes have been tallied for the 2012 Children’s Choice Book Awards. Winner in the 5th/6th grade category was Okay for Now, Gary Schmidt’s companion novel to his Newbery Honor-winning The Wednesday Wars. Illustrator of the year went to Brian Selznick for Wonderstruck, and author of the year went to Jeff Kinney for Cabin Fever, the latest installment in his Wimpy Kid series.
For a complete list of the winners…
May 10, 2012: Happy Children’s Book Week!
In honor of National Children’s Book Week, award-winning author-illustrator Matt Phelan posted this delightful review of Polly Horvath’s new book on his blog…
For more about Children's Book Week…
May 5, 2012: Oh Me, Oh May
Check out all the new books releasing in May...
May 5, 2012: Be a Fourth-Grade Somebody
One lucky fourth-grade classroom will win a Skype visit from author Judy Blume this month. To participate, all you have to do is have your students write a sentence or two on why they like fourth grade. The contest, which ends May 15, is sponsored by School Library Journal.
For details…
May 1, 2012: It’s No Mystery
The Edgar Award for the best juvenile mystery of the year was presented this past weekend to Matthew Kirby for Icefall (Scholastic, 2011). Publishers Weekly said of Kirby's Viking suspense novel, “Readers may be drawn in by the promise of action, which Kirby certainly fulfills, but they’ll be left contemplating the power of the pen versus the sword—or rather the story versus the war hammer.”
For more on the award…
To read a Mixed-up Files interview with Kirby...
May 1, 2012: Crystal Clear
Winners of the 2012 Crystal Kite Awards, the only peer-given awards in children’s publishing, were announced this week. The awards are voted on by members of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Middle-grade winners include The Friendship Doll by Kirby Larson and The Absolute Value of Mike by Kathryn Erskine.
For a complete list of winners...
What happens when a Daniel Pinkwater story is adapted for use in a statewide standardized test? The New York Times reports on the kerfuffle here...
April 30, 2012: More than One Path to Publication
The lines between traditional and self-publishing continue to blur as more and more traditionally published authors find ways to utilize the flexibility and freedom that self publishing offers. Author Kate Milford recently announced in Publishers Weekly that her new fantasy, The Broken Lands, which will be published by Clarion in September, will be accompanied by the release of a self-published novella, The Kairos Mechanism.
Says Milford, "I want to experiment with self-publishing as a way to promote and enhance traditional releases by providing extra content to readers in the form of complete, related tales. I also want to use resources that support independent bookstores." As an added bonus Milford is planning a special digital edition of her self-published work that will include illustrations by 10 teen readers.
For more…
April 14, 2012: It’s Raining, It’s Pouring!
Check out all the new books releasing in April...
April 12, 2012: The Greatest Girls
Jen Doll, columnist for The Atlantic Wire, talks about “The Greatest Girl Characters of Young Adult Literature” in this April 5 article, the first in a series called “Y.A. for Grownups.” Among the characters Doll mentions are a number of middle-grade favorites, including Meg Murray from A Wrinkle in Time and Claudia Kincaid of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
For more…
April 12, 2012: Moss Aims to Pick Up Where Tricycle Left Off
Berkeley-based children’s author and illustrator Marissa Moss, best-known for her Amelia’s Notebook series, is starting a new West Coast publishing venture called Creston Books. Says Moss, “The idea’s been percolating for years. It came to a head after Random House bought Ten Speed and threw Tricycle away.” Moss got her start with the quirky, risk-taking Tricycle Press, which published Amelia’s Notebook at a time when traditional publishers were unsure what to do with the illustrated diary format. “New York publishing is about: what’s the next Harry Potter, what’s the next Twilight?” says Moss. “When I’ve approached people, I’ve asked, ‘What is the book you’ve been dying to do, but New York won’t do?’ I want the books that they think won’t sell—because I think they will.”
Creston’s first books are due to release Fall 2013. In the meantime, Moss is seeking kickstarter funds to help back the project. For more…
April 10, 2012: After Chrestomanci
An online celebration of the life of British author Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011) will kick off April 12 with a two-week blog tour. In conjunction with the tour a special blog has been set up where fans can share their favorite books, quotes, stories, characters, covers, and memories of Diana with fellow fans around the world.
Wynne Jones was the author of dozens of popular titles, including the Chrestomanci series and Howl’s Moving Castle, which was made into an animated film by Hayao Miyazaki in 2004.
For details…
April 6, 2012: Game Over!
The Battle of the Books has ended. And the winner is…
I’m not telling! You’ll just have to click on over to the School Library Journal site and read Jonathan Stroud’s incredible analysis of the three finalists—Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet; Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys; and Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt.
March 31, 2012: Hiaasen Says There’s No Fooling Kids
Newbery-honor winning author Carl Hiaasen talks about writing for kids versus writing for adults in this March 6 School Library Journal interview. Says Hiaasen, “The idea that you're fooling kids is crazy. That's the way I've been able to connect to and go between adult and young adult books. Kids love sarcasm and the idea of bursting a grown-up's bubble. It's a question of calibrating the story to the young adult market. Once I did that with Hoot and it worked, it opened up a new and rewarding way of writing for me.”
Hiassen’s new middle-grade book, Chomp, was released this week.
March 29, 2012: What’s the Buzz in Middle-grade Fiction?
A panel of editors will share their predictions for this fall’s breakout titles when BookExpo America convenes June 5-7 at the Javits Center in New York City. You don’t have to wait until June to catch the buzz, though. According to the BookExpo on-line news, titles to watch are:
• Malcolm at Midnight by W. H. Beck (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann (HarperCollins)
• Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin (Little Brown)
• Tales from Lovecraft Middle School #1: Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gilman
• With Love From Paris: Mira's Sketchbook by Marissa Moss
For more…
March 26, 2012: Lindgren Winner Announced
Dutch author Guus Kuijer has won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award given by the Swedish Arts Council to honor an author whose body of work is in the spirit of Pippi Longstocking author Astrid Lindgren. The winner receives 5 million Swedish crowns (more than $700K), making it the richest prize in the world for children’s literature. Past winners include Katherine Paterson, Sonya Hartnett, Maurice Sendak, and Shaun Tan.
Kuijer was selected by an international jury of experts who praised his "razor-sharp realism,” “subtle humor,” and “visionary flights of fancy.” Kuijer is author of more than 30 titles, most of them for young teens. Sadly, only one of his books has appeared in English—The Book of Everything, a slim but haunting novel published by Arthur Levine Books in 2006.
March 20, 2012: No Grownups Allowed
It’s time for kids to vote for their favorite books of the year in this year’s Children’s Choice Awards. Winners will be announced during Children’s Book Week, May 7-13, 2012. The awards are sponsored by the Children’s Book Council, which celebrates the transformative power of literacy. Kids can vote individually or librarians, teachers, and booksellers can log on to record their students’ votes.
Finalists for the 3rd-4th grade Book of the Year are:
• Bad Kitty Meets the Baby by Nick Bruel
• A Funeral in the Bathroom and other School Bathroom Poems by Kalli Dakos
• The Monstrous Book of Monsters by Libby Hamilton
• Sidekicks by Dan Santat
• Squish #1: Super Amoeba by Jennifer and Matthew Holm
Finalists for 5th-6th Grade Book of the Year are:
• Bad Island by Doug TenNapel
• How to Survive Anything by Rachel Buchholz
• Lost & Found by Shaun Tan
• Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt
• Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog by Garth Stein
For more about Children’s Book Week…
To vote …
Our high-tech, random name-selector has chosen a winner. . . . . . .
STEPHANIE
Congratulations, Stephanie!
Please contact me at msfishby AT fromthemixedupfiles DOT com with your mailing address so I can send off that assortment of books.
Thank you again to all who shared memories and strategies for getting books to kids. Let’s keep on fighting the good fight!
Tracy
2 Comments 
Hello all!
In the interest of spreading the Mixed-up Files love internationally, your foreign correspondent *coughs modestly* will present you various aspects of the Middle Grade world as seen from an “outside the US looking in vantage point“.
Exciting stuff, huh?
And so we begin with an interview of a store dear to my heart – Storytime Books & More in Berlin, Germany.
This shop is situated on a very kid friendly side street in a quite nice area of Berlin – Friedenau. The proprietor, Diane Pentaleri-Otto, is a lady after my own heart. First off, she’s a New Yawker, an expat, and has a 12 year old (as we can all agree, a quite optimum age) whose English is flawless and accent-free (not as easy as you might think around here!).
Her already eight and a half year old store specializes in books for the 0 – 14 year old set (another mutually agreeable aspect!) and it offered a veritable cornucopia of brilliant MG literature when I oh-so-innocently browsed around beforehand (don’t believe me? Check my debit card bill after I left! *cries*)
So onward and upward! I present to you Madam Pentaleri-Otto:
Welcome to the Mixed Up Files, Diane! Let’s start off. Tell me: why a children’s book shop? Or to be more direct, a children’s English bookshop in Berlin, Germany?
Well, I tell everyone it was a case of temporary insanity *laughs*. But really, when I had my daughter there were hardly any English options for books for her and I loved to read to her. This was eight and a half years ago. There were simply no opportunities for English books here. Plus, after I had her I experienced a shakedown of priorities. You might understand that > *nods to my baby daughter Loki in stroller*
*nods back* Boy do I!
So anyway, nothing I did BB (before baby) seemed right or ‘worthy’ of being worked on afterwards, if you will, so I started Storytime. And it really took off!
I can see that! This is a wonderful shop! It looks like you do activities for the kids that include writing and imagination?
*nods* Yes! We started off with a singalong in English, and have gradually moved to a successful series of weekly story-times, a musical theater camp, Afternoon English club, Musical English and other small English classes – all with tie-ins to writing and telling a story of their own!
That is so great. So you naturally offer books for the expat community, huh?
Well, that’s only one aspect of our sales, to be honest. Expats love the hassle-free aspect of Amazon…but many do feel as I feel – that any story to be experienced happens through good old ink and paper – and so they will bring the kids in or just come in and look around themselves. We do have our German parents that come in and want stuff for their kids, too! Early English Learning is very popular in Germany. We have German and English books for most of our copies, as you can see.
I can, indeed! Does this make it easier for people? (I think that the placement of a book’s English and German books alongside each other is an absolutely brilliant idea.)
Definitely.
And how do you choose the books you bring in? Recommendations? Publishers hitting you up?
We get a large majority of German subsidiary publishers sending reps by and the reps plugging the new releases. They’re quite honest – as Germans are known to be! We do get a couple UK reps over as well, and we tend to choose our new books from these guys (German and UK combined). They know our store, they know our likes and dislikes, so it’s very personalised shopping geared to us. Sometimes I’ll discover an English book by reading the German version (oddly enough, this is how I discovered the Hunger Games!)
** Pause for gushing over the Hunger Games **
We do also sometimes get requests that turn into orders for the store. We get books just about every way you can!
This is heartening to hear! (Authors – send your reps cookies! STAT!) So…do you have author signings and events?
We do, but they’re a mixed up bag. (no pun intended)
Howso? (none taken)
Well, consider this: We are an independent (read: not huge) bookstore. We focus on children’s literature, and we are not made of golden coins. So when an author charges a huge reading fee, we either suck it up and lose the money sometimes, or just break even. Sometimes an author will be classy and waive their fee, but then sometimes we don’t get a big turnout because of lack of marketing, bad time of year, etc. It’s really the luck of the draw, and that’s definitely one aspect of the bookstore I’ll be looking at in terms of making it even more successful in the future. Among other things.
Really? Like … ?
Well, take technology. My daughter is 12 and she uses technology in a totally different way than I ever, ever would. When will the day come that kids simply log into their e-readers to read a book and bypass print entirely? But then, if you *do* bypass print, is it really a book? Is it really a read?
I know what you mean. *points to the Hunger Games* I can tell you exactly where I was when I read about Katniss and Ree, for instance. Could you do that with an ereader? Would the experience still be there?
*nods* Exactly. That’s exactly what I wonder, but the scene has changed so radically from even a year ago and it’s changing so rapidly every day that I’m looking at new ways of bringing in customers to a brick and mortar and/or getting our own piece of online pie.
Do tell!
Well, for one, we’ve set up an online shop on our site with the help of our largest German distributor, LIBRI. If our customers simply click and buy here, we get a small kick-back – and every little bit helps when you’re up against Amazon! We’re also looking to expand our web presence even more, amp up our Twitter presence, and we’re working on a top-secret project for a Kid’s Book Club online. That’s going to be very exciting!
In the meantime, we’re working out how we will survive in an electronic technology world. What is our new market situation? How do we catch and keep the 8 to 12 year old reader? How do we help to inspire the love of reading in a new generation of readers?
All very relevant questions for any brick and mortar, that’s for sure! Let’s talk trends. Just shoot some thoughts out at me as I ask you the question.
Sure!
Challenges?
Amazon, definitely. Technology. Space. We need space! Importing. Exchange rates! *Argh!* Getting our name out there!
Good things?
International schools working with us for book fairs. More and more English throughout the city. More providers…new kids! Our new Workshops we’re debuting soon!
Trends you’re seeing, book-wise?
Was Fantasy. Fantasy was huge. Then vampires. *sigh* Now, with the Hunger Games being so successful, we’re seeing lots of…how can I say it…Sci-fi. Dystopian. I love books that question how we live and Sci-Fi is a great question-asking type of book!
Diane, this was wonderful. Thanks so much for allowing your wonderful store to be interviewed! You were fabulous!
Thanks for having us!
—
Was that not brill? She brings up many points, one of which we’ve talked about on the Mixed-up Files before. As Jan, I’d love to know your thoughts on ereaders and their place alongside a brick and mortar. Are they the end of stores? Any ideas on how to make paper books relevant for young readers? How the brick and mortar can survive?
****
Jen K Blom writes literary fiction for the Middle Grade set from her home in Berlin, Germany. She is ably assisted in her endeavors by her hairless cat muse Yoda, his mentally unstable brother Blue, and her lovely daughter Loki. All pictures look as lovely as they are thanks to her patient (and photoshop talented!) husband.
The winner of our third summer giveaway is…
Congratulations, Kathleen! We’ll be sending you an email, so be watching for it.
If you didn’t win, don’t worry. We will be giving away middle-grade books all summer, so there will be plenty of other opportunities. And, since we’ve hit about the half-way mark for our summer giveaways, we wanted to do another big one, starting today!
We’ve chosen the following six MG titles to give to our next lucky winner:
Nice and Mean by Jessica Leader
The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
Secret Saturdays by Torrey Maldonado
Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning by Danette Haworth
The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams by Rhonda Hayter
Jemma Hartman, Camper Extraordinaire by Brenda Ferber
To enter, simply leave a comment below. Earn extra entries by blogging, tweeting, or facebooking this giveaway (don’t forget to share a link to your blog or tweet). This giveaway is for US/CAN residents only (sorry, we can’t ship these internationally). The winner will be chosen on Tuesday, August 3, 2010.
A big THANK YOU to the authors who have donated copies of their books for our summer giveaways! We really do appreciate your help in spreading the word about great middle-grade books out there. Happy summer reading, everyone!
From the Mixed-Up Files is the group blog of middle-grade authors celebrating books for middle-grade readers. For anyone with a passion for children’s literature—teachers, librarians, parents, kids, writers, industry professionals— we offer regularly updated book lists organized by unique categories, author interviews, market news, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a children's book from writing to publishing to promoting.
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Jul 24, 2010 
