Forget Universal and Warner Bros, folks. Children’s book illustrators have studios just as full of whimsy, magic, and fantasy, along with the advantage of also being real and personal and beautiful. One of the BEA events arranged by the Association of Booksellers for Children and the Children’s Book Council was a three-studio tour for small groups of visitors. This was a magnificently fun, enriching opportunity, one of the highlights in a BEA full of highlights.
Everyone involved in the planning and execution of this event deserves major kudos. I cannot imagine trying to work out the logistics; the mapping alone must have taken days. Beyond figuring out which Manhattan and Brooklyn illustrators would participate, the organizers had to group them into threes, divvy up the visitors among them, and then plan routes and timing and set subway and walking directions for at least a dozen disparate groups of booksellers from out of town. I need four Advil just thinking about that level of detail.
My group visited the studios of Tad Hills, Betsy Lewin and Ted Lewin, and Katie Yamasaki. They were all such kind and welcoming hosts, and their studios were distinct and enchanting.
Tad Hills lives in a fetching brownstone in a great little Brooklyn neighborhood full of authors and artists. We were greeted at the door by Rocket, a cheery moppet of a dog (you can see his smile through the flying fur below):

Tad doesn’t have a separate studio; he paints at home at his dining room table and in the kitchen. The living room/dining room are open and light and full of colorful art, books, and incredible Halloween-costume building replicas Tad made for his kids. When we arrived, the dining room table also boasted a bowl of fresh cherries (yum) along with Tad’s new board book addition to the Rocket books, Rocket’s Mighty Words. This word book for early readers makes so much sense as a companion to Rocket Learns to Read. 





Tad’s artwork is shamelessly adorable. You just want to pick his characters up off the page and cuddle them. The best part of our visit was hearing Tad talk about his artistic process and his upcoming Duck and Goose book for next summer. The premise is funny and there’s a little surprising twist with the characters’ usual antics. Tad had taped up some of the art in progress and finished paintings on the wall for us to see, and took us through his process as both author and artist.
At the end of our visit, Tad handed out small square cards with a Rocket illustration, then escorted us to a nearby bakery, where the cards were good for two free cookies. How’s that for hospitality? (One Girl Cookies bakery is not only delicious, but is a favorite haunt of writers. We ran into Siobhan Vivian and Jenny Han, co-authors of Burn for Burn and this fall’s follow-up, Fire with Fire, hanging out side by side with their laptops.)
We hopped back on the subway to travel further into Brooklyn to visit Betsy Lewin and Ted Lewin’s elegant brownstone. As with Tad, their home houses their studios. All of the rooms we visited were full of art by both Lewins and other artists, and lovely objects from their travels around the world. This year marks the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary — amazing to believe because they seem too young to be at such a landmark! — and it was fascinating to see their separate studios. Ted has the lion’s share of space, but as he pointed out, his studio also stores both artists’ files. Their styles are so different, which they said in part accounts for their ability to stay happily married doing the same type of work all these years.
Ted’s paintings are detailed, beautiful, realistic, richly handsome. His travels have provided not only hundreds, likely thousands, of photographs Ted uses as references when he draws and paints, but also many stories and anecdotes. He told us of a farmer in a rice paddy who thought Ted was “nuts” for standing there all day taking pictures of him, but that day yielded a beautiful painting.



Betsy Lewin’s style is loose, free and joyous. Her sense of humor and joie de vivre burst from the page. No one does dancing animals like Betsy!

I could have spent hours poring over the walls filled with artwork from both Lewins and photographs of their many journeys. But all too soon, it was time for us to depart. Holiday House had generously provided copies of Betsy’s You Can Do It! and Thumpy Feet for booksellers to take home, as well as Ted’s Look and Where Am I? What Am I?  Betsy had brought out a stash of tote bags she’s collected over the years for us to carry them in. Ted called us a cab to take us to our next studio. Really, we might have been in a Merchant Ivory film, our hosts were so gracious.

The cab dropped us off outside our last stop on the tour, a busy street with car repair shops and other industrial entities, including this mysterious business:

Artist Katie Yamasaki is one of many artists who have a studio in a warehouse building nearby, and she ushered us inside, up stairs, and down a long hallway.

One of my bookselling compatriots took a deep whiff of the hallway and said happily, “It smells like art school.” There was indeed a paint-y, clay-ey aroma.

Katie’s studio was an orderly riot of color, filled with artwork covering the walls and some canvases lined up on the floor. Her artwork reflects and celebrates the wide, beautiful spectrum of cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity in our country and was a delight to behold. Katie told us that one of her grandfathers was from Japan; the other, French Canadian, so she is a multicultural cornucopia.
Katie not only illustrates children’s books, but paints commissioned murals all over the world. She is an elementary school teacher and also works with kids in urban neighborhoods on mural projects.


One of Katie’s most powerful projects involved two murals, one painted by children of incarcerated moms on the outside of the prison, the other painted by the moms inside:

The canvases in her studio ranged from small to huge. I couldn’t stop looking at one piece in particular; something about its sweet round grace captivated me:

Like the other artists on our tour, Katie had treats set up for us on her table, and goodies to take home, including Fish for Jimmy: Inspired by One Family’s Experience in a Japanese American Internment Camp. We left her studio happy, tired, and full of images from our day. BEA is such a busy whirlwind, full of sessions and booths to visit and things to tick off one’s to-do list. This was an experience that allowed us to slow down a bit, savor our profession, and appreciate anew the imaginative, inspiring people in it.
It was a rare treat to be invited to share a glimpse of these artists’ creative worlds. Thank you once again, Tad and Ted and Betsy and Katie (and publishers and ABC/CBC), for opening your doors to us. And can we get some more of those cookies?

I am blessed to live in Vermont for many reasons, but as a bookstore owner, one of them is access to an amazingly responsive free advertising called the Front Porch Forum. The FPF is an internet-based “regional network of online neighborhood forums.” It connects people with their neighbors.
It’s so simple, it’s brilliant. Make it easy for neighbors to talk to each other and they talk. You can only join the forum for your town, and this is great because then I’m reading about my town. I’ve gotten to know my neighbors from this. I’ve posted about a swarm of bees in my tree and what to do about them, asked for mechanic recommendations, and more importantly, used FPF as way to talk about the bookstore to people who live close enough to care.
This kind of targeted discussion is so beneficial to the bookstore. We can announce events, book talks, parties, etc. to just about every household in five towns because everyone on staff is a member of their neighborhood forum. The posting isn’t fancy, there’s no artwork, and you can’t post graphics, but you can add links to your website. There is something about the friendly nature of this type of free-ranging discussion with your neighbors that makes the FPF one of the emails everyone reads daily. You can follow the saga of the missing Malamutes from the frantic posting that the dogs were lost on the coldest night of the year to the triumphant “they’re home!” posting three days later.
All of our events get posted to the forum and it generates a lot of attendance at events. The nature of the forum works best for spontaneous folks who only need three days notice to come to an event. What’s so great is the wide range of people who read the forum. Folks who’ve never been to the store will come to events because of a posting and then get on our mailing list to find out about future ones. This is a win-win.
And did I mention it’s free? I know other towns have similar things, and I’d love to hear about them.

Yesterday we hosted the PBS Kids Go! Writers at our store. Every year our local PBS station runs a writing contest for elementary school kids in Vermont. Each of the children had written and illustrated their own story and submitted them to PBS earlier in the year. Seven writers from first through third grade came to the store to read their stories aloud. They came with their families to celebrate their writing. 
Part of the celebration that’s always fun for me is to see the different approaches kids have when they read aloud. Nerves were a factor for all but one child. Grayson (all the kids’ names have been changed), a very outgoing third-grader, read like he’s been doing this his whole life. His story, about a cowboy and a sombrero, was complex and full of dialogue. His voice was strong and clear and he even added a few steps like a pony at the end to show how the cowboy left town.
The first boy, Adam, read as fast as he could with his head down. At the end of his reading he picked his head up and whipped through his book showing us the pictures he had drawn. Then he practically catapulted back to his seat. Then a girl, Kiki, who had gotten her story bound in a small hard cover, got up to read. Her mom came with her and Kiki got the biggest case of stage fright that rendered her practically mute. We all gently nudged her, but she would have none of it and sat back down. Kiki tried again, and again she hid behind her mother. I suspect she might have gotten spooked by Dad’s massive video camera. I know it would have thrown me.
What struck me about these young writers was how good their stories were. There was one about a flying pencil with activity issues read by a quiet boy with a slight lisp. The ninja story written by Matt was a little hard to follow, but the drawings were amazing but not seen until the end. These kids were all under nine and to read in front of strangers, in their Sunday best clothes, can be really daunting.
And the reading ended with Kiki standing to the side of her mother in front of the crowd with her book fully obscuring her face while she read her story. But her case of stage fright ended with a wry smile when she read her author note and then waited several long seconds before saying, “The End.”

(Side note: I loved BookExpo this year, and my next post will share some of the most fun highlights and photos from the trip. So if you’ve been waiting to hear about it, I promise, you will!)
One of the fun things about being a bookseller is the opportunity to notice how readers (at least in one’s own market) respond to book covers, titles, and handselling “pitches.” So much can be learned from observing what makes a customer’s eyes glaze over, as well as what perks them up. Day after day, we see which books are snatched up eagerly by young hands and which books kids will shrink away from even touching with a pinky finger. (This is, sadly, literally true. I’ve seen kids recoil from a cover they dislike. Nothing is sadder for an enthusiastic booktalker than seeing a book undermined by its own packaging.)
The immediate-appeal factor of a book usually has most to do with cover art, but titles can be surprisingly important to a book’s success. As always, matters of personal taste come into play, and nailing down titles that work or don’t can be more elusive than assessing successful cover art. But since a terrific title can get readers to pick up a book whose cover art isn’t ideal, finding the right one is critical.
The best kinds of titles seem to be:

• Titles that are very clear about their subject matter — The Boyfriend List, The Candy Shop War, Fablehaven, Wereworld, The House with the Clock in its Walls, Rapunzel’s Revenge, Evil Genius
  
• Titles that work in concert with the cover art to paint an inviting idea of what the story is about — My Side of the Mountain, Chasing Vermeer, Charlotte’s Web, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, The Sea of Trolls
  
• Titles with words that appeal to kids, like “spy,” “clue,” “game,” “secret,” puzzle,” “ghost,” etc. — 11 Birthdays, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, The Westing Game, Harriet the Spy, The Golden Compass, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Lightning Thief
  
• Titles that intrigue — From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Mango-Shaped Space, A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears, Inkheart, The House of Scorpions, The Game of Sunken Places, A Great and Terrible Beauty
  
• Titles that delight or surprise or amuse — The True Meaning of Smekday, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, Whales on Stilts, Toad Rage, The Strange Case of Origami Yoda 
  
• Titles that are pleasing to the ear, even if they don’t immediately reveal too much about the story — Alabama Moon, Grave Mercy, Journey to the River Sea, The Star of Kazan, Artemis Fowl, The Starry River of the Sky, The Amulet of Samarkand
  

I’m reluctant to list examples of titles that tank, because that would make the authors and publishers feel terrible. So I’ll give a couple of examples of books we sell really, really well despite titles we have to overcome. One is Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan. I may have griped about this title here before, because, while it does point to one aspect of the story, it is too broadly, vaguely romantic and conveys none of the sharp wit and crisp pacing of this addictive YA fantasy. I’ve had to work hard to get my smart, funny readers (this book’s demographic) past the title. Once they do, however, they’re in. Customers actually phone the store to tell me how much they love it.
Books whose titles don’t give a reader something solid to hook into can be problematic. Another fantastic book and strong seller by a superb writer is Gary Schmidt’s Okay for Now. If that book hadn’t been by an award-winning author, it might have struggled more, because — at least for me — there just wasn’t enough to connect the title to the subject matter of the story.
I’ll also say that books with overused words (“water,” “shadow,” “bone,” etc.) can struggle by getting lost in the crowd. However, these words are overused precisely because they resonate — so if the rest of the title is distinctive, they can be effective.
What are your experiences with titles? Are there other categories of titles that make a book fly off your shelves? Aspects of titles that always grab you — or leave you cold?
 

In recent years at BEA, a really fun and kind of crazy event takes place: Author Speed Dating, in which tables of booksellers and librarians are visited by up to 20 authors, one at a time, for three minutes each. The authors deliver a pitch for their upcoming novel or nonfiction or picture book, and we take notes (and take home advance reading copies of these books), and then the gong sounds and the author moves to the next table for a repeat performance. This is an exhausting but giddy marathon for the authors; happily, they are fueled by excitement and the desire to serve their work and their publishers well. Often, these are debut folks, trying to introduce themselves to 200 strangers and give a sense of who they are and how their book stands out from the crowd — in just three minutes. Can you imagine having to deliver the pitch for your upcoming novel or nonfiction or picture book 20 times in a row, especially if you’ve never done it before?! It gets a little silly by the last few sessions, and I imagine the authors collapse in a collective heap afterward.
Sometimes the three minutes fly by; every once in a while, they drag. During the event, I noticed a few things that might be helpful for both authors and booksellers.
AUTHORS

• • Do introduce yourself with your full name. We’re seeing a lot of people, and we want to remember you.
  • Do bring your book with you to each table. You want us to be looking at that cover (and the interior art, if applicable) the entire time you’re talking about it. This helps anchor it (and you, connected to that book) in our brains.
  • Go easy on the hard sell; telling booksellers how many books your events will “definitely” move undercuts your purpose and is more of a turn-off than an enticer. Focus on the story.
  • Do share a fun tidbit or two about the making of the book; everyone loves those behind-the-scenes glimpses, and they help us remember you and your book.
  • Be confident! Your book (and you) deserve to be at the table. Your publisher wouldn’t be highlighting you at this event unless the house was excited about your book. Know that we are delighted to meet you and hear about your upcoming work.
  • Remind yourself around Table 10 that this crazy — and, we hope, fun — nightmare will eventually end. Just close your eyes and think of England. Oh, wait, I mean, open your eyes and pretend you’re introducing your baby to a room full of potential godparents eager to meet her.

BOOKSELLERS 

• • Sometimes the author (or publicist) will ask the table to introduce ourselves. Do use your full name, your store name, and your store’s location. That’s more helpful to them than a friendly, “Hi, I’m Lucy.”
  • Do try to have a question at the ready in case an author flags. By the 15th table, an author might need a little help.
  • Look engaged. Nothing is harder than talking to a blank wall, so let your face show that you appreciate the author’s effort.
  • Don’t take up time soliciting events for your store. A bookseller friend at another table was annoyed by someone who monopolized much of the authors’ precious three minutes trying to arrange store visits. Since each author is accompanied by a PR person from the publishing house, just write a note to the publicist on the back of your business card and hand it over as they head off to the next table.
  • For the love of all things holy, please don’t text at the table while the author is talking. (Note-taking is fine; just remember to look up now and then to re-engage with that hardworking author.)

Kudos to the brave souls who engage in Author Speed Dating! And thanks so much to Shannon O’Connor at the Association of Booksellers for Children and the fine folks at the Children’s Book Council for arranging such a fun event.

We have a rule here at the Flying Pig: put your hand on the book before you tell someone we have it. Why we have this rule is quite simple. Inventory, while delightful, is not always accurate. This rule applies to people calling for books (especially for them) and for folks in the store.
Our store is not that large, but I think we all know that books can migrate. Just yesterday, I found Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City in the adult sports section. Whether this was a simple mistake or someone making a joke about serial killers, I’ll never know. But what I did know was, several of us looked high and low for the last copy of the book in the store for the customer who was starting to tap her toes while three people looked around the store for it.
Misshelved books are the bane of every bookstore. Sometimes, staffers mis-shelve books because it’s not clear just where that funky non-fiction book should actually go. And sometimes customers are being “helpful” and put the book back where they think it goes. Often they are right, but when they are wrong they can be spectacularly wrong. This makes finding books harder than it needs to be.
We all cheat and look up the book before we embark on the search. It’s surprising to me how many times I used to be looking for a particular book and thought it’s red, when in fact it’s got a blue spine. This one mistake can cause me to overlook the needed title because it doesn’t look right. But once I saw one of my staffers look up the cover of a book and thought: that’s genius. Now, it’s the only way I set about on a search.
So, while it might take a little bit longer for a definitive yes when someone calls for a book, customers can rest easy knowing that the book will be on the special order shelf when they come in for it.

I skipped BookExpo this year and am blogging this week while Elizabeth is at the show. She will be recapping all the events next week.
The past Wednesday was the last story hour for our staffer JP, who is retiring. All the little kids knew it was her last time, as she had told them the week earlier. Parents and caregivers came with bags of goodies for JP, and some of the older children looked sad. One of the older girls, Belle, who is three, just could not bring herself to hug JP goodbye, and settled instead on a high-five.
Our Wednesday story hours have just grown and grown over the years under JP’s capable hands. Last year we had a monthly Vermont author/illustrator guest for story hour that was enormously successful. This past year JP has added a small craft for the kids to do. It’s hard to know the right craft because you never know the ages of the kids ahead of time, but she always managed to find something all the little hands could participate in. Her reading style is engaging and she spent a lot of time thinking hard about the right books to read for the anticipated mix of regulars. Sometimes, a week ahead there would be a stack of picture books on the back counter with a post-it: JP’s story hour books.
I’ve seen story hour go from one child to sometimes 10 kids a week. And I’ve blogged about this before, so I’ll just touch on it here: story hour is about making a lasting connection with kids and their families. This turns into real relationships as evidenced by the number of parties JP got invited to, and the number of holiday cards and presents she got. The counter was brimming with gift bags, plants and cards on Wednesday as a thank you to JP. And, almost all story hour families are book buyers, which is a lovely bonus.
So, starting next week, Elizabeth and I will alternate weeks to do story hour. We know we have big shoes to fill and hope we can continue to build what JP has already done.
Just in case, we’ve already made plans for JP to come back once a month starting in the fall.

As the school year draws to a close there is always that last-minute flurry of silent auctions, benefits and other school functions that send folks into the bookstore looking for donations. After 17 years in business I wanted to share some very simple do’s and don’ts for this process.
– Do send someone to the store to ask for the donation who actually shops at the store. There is nothing more disheartening than someone coming in and looking around while I’m getting their donated gift card and saying, “Wow, great store. I’ve never been here before.” Bookstores, or most any other retail establishments for that matter, are not rolling in money that they just give away. We are far more likely to give to someone we know.
– Do not ask for a donation after we’ve already given one in another way. For instance, I just did a big comedy show for two local PTOs and less than a week later someone, who clearly didn’t know about my connection to the comedy show, asked for a donation. I said no because that particular school had just received $800 from me for the show. I really felt like asking me to give again was a little thoughtless. Plus, it reinforced that sometimes not every person knows what’s really going on and they really should before they embark on asking folks for money.
– Do have the kids ask. If there is a fundraising drive for the third grade for new materials, please send the kids to the store. It’s adorable to see the kids work together on who says what, and honestly, it’s fun to see them act all grown-up. Plus, I think it’s important for them to make the link that their favorite stores are working with them on enriching their school. Also, there are very few people who can flat-out say no to a child asking for a donation for the class trip.
– Don’t ask for anything if the store is slamming busy. Come back later and try again. Interrupting a busy bookseller to ask for a donation is thoughtless and an almost assured way of getting back a no.
– Do make sure your cause makes sense for a bookstore to give money to. Not every business is a good fit for your charity. And if your raffle winner lives 50 miles away, he is not very likely to use the card. Be selective about who you approach.
– Lastly, do understand that we give what we can. While we wish every gift card were for $50, that’s just not realistic. Do not audibly groan when told a $20 gift card is what we can give. All retail establishments are doing the best they can to balance community activism and staying in business.
 
 

I do love the last two weeks of the school year. It’s finally warm enough for all the kids to not only bike home from school, but to stop for a creemee. If you don’t know what this is, you haven’t spent any time in Vermont in the summer. Creemees are our version of soft serve ice cream that is usually only available during the warmer months.
I walk a lot around town and I noticed two things on my walk today. Almost all the kids were bicycling while eating ice cream cones and many had our Flying Pig Bookstore handled bag swinging from their handlebars. They stopped for a book then worked their way down the block to the creemee stand.
The pure joy on these kids’ faces was just the picture of summer. Carefree and happy that the day was over and the fun could begin, these kids all chose food and books. I was catapulted back to my childhood. There was a great penny candy store housed in a bookstore in the town I grew up. What a great idea, I thought the first time I went in. Candy and books!!!!! I rode home with my books in a handled bag swinging from handlebars while eating gummy bears. I loved that my bookstore is part of that same joyous experience for the kids in town.

Some books get you in their talons and won’t let go. You know a book has you in its grip when…
… you choose to make risotto for dinner because all that stirring will buy you reading time.
… you find yourself hauling your laundry bag, plastic tub, detergent, and sack of quarters all in one hand so you can hold your book with the other.
… you ignore texts and phone calls you actually should take because the pages are just too compelling.
I could have made up funnier, more extreme examples, but all three of these really happened the other day when I was reading Chris Crutcher’s Period 8. I have always been a Crutcher fan, but hadn’t read a book of his in a while. In fact, the last one may have been his HILARIOUS memoir of childhood, King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography. So this new Chris Crutcher was a hot item staring out at me from my galley shelves, and I snapped it up — and then couldn’t stop. It’s got all the chewy goodness of a Crutcher teen athlete novel, ramped up with a mystery that unfolds in a most creepy way. Won’t say too much more about the plot because then you’ll feel you’ve read it, and that would be a big loss for your soup-stirring, laundry-sorting afternoon.
I’ve always loved how this author manages to tread teenage territory realistically, neither pretending teens don’t have and/or think about sex a lot, nor making it the raison d’être of the book. Well, hmm, that’s not entirely the case here, actually, since the suspenseful part of the plot rests on a certain kind of trafficking — which is clear from the first couple of pages. So don’t hand this to a 12-year-old. Still, Crutcher has such a fabulously even-handed, rational, realistic way of addressing issues that you want teens to read and talk about his books. He goes for ethics rather than morality, and he lets his characters make stupid choices, be honest about them, then work through the murkiness — with some help from friends and maybe even some trusted adults — to come out the other side.
I also love how “guy” his books are; I always feel like I’m hanging out with my male buddies when I read him — that specific mix of humor and heart, bravado and doubt. His characters are, for the most part, trying to be good (not goody-two-shoes) people — and to figure out what exactly that means. Which pretty much sums up being a teenager, if I remember accurately. There’s also a real adult in Period 8, a caring teacher who isn’t perfect but one every kid might dream of having: an easy-to-talk to grownup who will listen, isn’t quick to judge or freak out, has a sense of humor, who calls you on your stuff and gives you the straight response you need to hear, who’s involved with the kids he teaches without being too involved (or creepy, or needy).
Okay, so sure, maybe aspects of the plot and the bad guys and the action climax in Period 8 are a bit over the top, but isn’t that what we look for in an escape read? It’s popcorn, but popcorn as written by a thoughtful, funny soul.
When you’re done with Period 8 (Greenwillow) and are looking for similarly compulsive suspense reads, try Michael Northrup’s Gentlemen (Scholastic/Push) and Tim Wynne-Jones’s The Uninvited (Candlewick).
Readers, what are your telltale signs of being gripped by a terrific book?