When your bookstore is in an urban center HONONI’s have happened and continue to happen all the time. They are important of course, but unexceptional and a matter of course. If your bookstore is in a rural town, however, a HONONI is an absolute singularity and a huge big deal. All right, slow down you say. What are HONONI’s, and did I coin that acronym just now? HONONI’s are Harbingers of Nonfiction of National Interest, historical events which spawn nationally released nonfiction books. Let’s face it, notable historical events happen all the time in cities. Take Boston, for example.  A giant wave of molasses that immolates a whole neighborhood? Boston had one of those. The Boston Tea Party, even the title rubs it in. If you have a bookstore in an urban area, or even a suburban area, big nonfiction releases set locally happen regularly.
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At a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt dinner for author Benjamin Saenz (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe), several booksellers, and HMH director of field sales Jen Reynolds, gathered at a Minneapolis restaurant during Winter Institute. As happens at these dinners, the conversation ranged far and wide; this one covered everything from bootlegging and brothels in 1940s Mexico to poetry, depression, and art, to diversity in the children’s book field, to hookup patterns in 21st-century gay culture. In other words, your typical youth literature discussion.
Mr. Saenz was in Minneapolis to share his upcoming YA novel, The Inexplicable Logic of My Life (Clarion, March 7). As in Aristotle and Dante, the characters both are and are not himself, and friendship, family, and the recognition/creation of the self are at the core of the story. We all had a lot to talk about.
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Like many bookstores right now, BookPeople is actively talking about using our platform to better represent diverse voices, to champion the spirit of inclusivity, and to keep making our store a safe space for all members of our community. Elizabeth Bluemle and Leslie Hawkins have written this week about some concrete actions their stores are taking. I wanted to chime in to talk about some ways BookPeople has begun partnering with the Anti-Defamation League in our area and to provide links to some resources that might interest other stores.
As I’m sure you know, ADL has been fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry and protecting civil rights for all for over a century – a mission that could not be more critical right now. They’ve also been working with Austin schools since 2004 through the No Place for Hate® initiative. From what I’ve seen and heard from Austin educators, it’s a truly innovative program that provides a framework for schools to combat hatred and bias by building environments of respect that allow all students to thrive. I knew about ADL’s excellent programming in the schools, but I didn’t realize how much they focus on books to engage kids in conversations about bias and bullying and social justice.
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As some of you may know Judith Rosen is retiring from being PW’s bookselling editor following her reports on the just concluded Winter Institute 12. I have long considered Judith a good friend but I am afraid that I must report that a dark side of her professional character revealed itself here in Minneapolis.
You might think, in the context of all the pressing issues of social justice and inclusion in the bookselling community that came into focus during the conference, that Judith would have elevated her personal focus. As it turned out, despite doing a stellar job of reporting on the conference, she exhibited a competitive nature towards me personally that was truly shocking. It was almost as though she were determined to not only highlight the fact that she was a professional journalist while I was an amateur hack, but to prevent me from reporting on the institute at all. Even worse she appeared bent on forestalling me from fulfilling my responsibilities as both an ABA Board Advisory Council member and a presenter. Here, I’ll show you.
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Greetings from chilly Minneapolis, which hosted this year’s Winter Institute (the bookselling community’s annual educational conference). I won’t recap the conference; Publishers Weekly and Shelf Awareness have posted terrific photos and highlights from the sessions, like the phenomenal breakfast keynote by Roxane Gay, who took the entire book industry to task not only for its continued lack of inclusiveness at a systemic level, but for complacently allowing inclusion efforts to stop at inviting people of color to participate  on panels, and for expecting people of color to lead the way and do the work of activism for us. (Read more of her comments here, thanks to Shelf Awareness.)
Gay’s rallying cry reinforced and galvanized passionate booksellers, who raised concerns and calls to action throughout the weekend, especially at the well-attended Town Hall Meeting. The wheels of righting racism grind exceeding slow, but many booksellers, publishers, and American Booksellers Association staff and board members are heading home with renewed determination, ideas, and fire in the belly to take meaningful action.
In addition to stepping up my own efforts to do outreach to make our bookstore staff more diverse, I’ve decided to focus energy on a program I’ve wanted to implement for two years. It’s an idea I first heard from blogger and literacy activist Edi Campbell at a conference on diversity in publishing. Brilliant in its simplicity, this is something just about any individual can do for a few dollars a month, and something any bookstore can help scores of individuals to accomplish: adopt one classroom and donate a book each month to the classroom’s library. That’s it! The donated books—celebrating the rich tapestry of people who share this nation—will be wonderful, engaging, and inclusive, and at the end of the year, the classroom will have a dozen new titles (two in September and December, and two in May for schools that end in May).
My plan for the store’s Adopt-a-Classroom Program is this:
We will introduce the Adopt-a-Classroom Program to customers and teachers, explaining how it works: customers will come to the store or use our website to choose one book each month to donate to a preschool, kindergarten, or elementary school classroom. The chosen books must feature real or fictional characters who are traditionally underrepresented in literature, so that the recipient classroom library becomes richer, more inclusive, and welcoming for all students, helping them see themselves and others reflected on the pages of their books.
The bookstore will offer customers our educator discount for these purchases.
We will help match customers with classrooms in need if they don’t already have a classroom in mind.
For customers desiring some guidance on what to donate, we will have lists of recommended books for preschool and grades K-3, 4-5, and 6-8. We will also use as a resource our World Full of Color database of more than 1,300 books featuring main characters of color in a multitude of stories that are not primarily driven by issues of race.
We will invite teachers to share any wish list books with us (as long as those books fill the inclusive mission of this program).
This is just the kernel of the plan. There are so many ways to be creative and expand on the idea!
Once we have the information sheet written and designed, and the logistical mechanisms in place, I’ll post again and share the materials so that other bookstores can use them as a springboard.
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Winter Institute colleagues, what plans are you bringing home to your stores?
P.S. It’s also almost February and Black History Month, so I wanted to direct people back to the September post, A Joyful Diversity Collection, which, among other titles, features many books about African-American heroes, explorers, inventors, scientists, artists, musicians, doctors, social innovators, and so much more. In these dark days, it’s even more important to add JOY, triumph, inspiration, and hope to your Black History Month displays!

Even kids whose parents keep them on a fairly low screen-time diet will likely have seen or heard something about the tumultuous events of this past weekend, as spontaneous nationwide protests sprang up in airports around the country. How can, or should, we in our role as children’s booksellers be of service to kids and families in a time like this?
We all have different approaches and different comfort levels when it comes to broaching subjects with our customers that are political or that may be easily politicized. What’s appropriate? What’s useful? Aside from anything else I may feel called to do on my personal time, I’m determined to do something this week at the bookstore to provide some small measure of comfort, insight, and empowerment to those kids.
Here are two actionable ideas being implemented at Spellbound this week:

First, our weekly story time will feature stories of immigrants and refugees. It’s always appropriate to share stories that foster empathy and compassion. Among the picture books we’re looking forward to sharing this week: I’m New Here by Anne Sibley O’Brien, in which three students, newly arrived from three different countries, learn to feel confident and comfortable in their new school without losing a sense of their home country, language, and identity.

Welcome by French author-illustrator Barroux was inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. It follows three polar bears who are in danger and in need of a new home. After being turned away by others when they were in need, the bears decide to be kind and welcoming when, after finally finding that home, a trio of lost monkeys comes along and is in need of a new home.

The Journey by Francesca Sanna is a beautiful book that’s received well-earned attention and critical praise since its release last year. A family leaves their home and everything they know to escape the turmoil and tragedy brought by war.
How many stories we’ll get through at story time depends, as many of you well know, on the average age and attention span of the audience that shows up any given day.  Some more great choices on this theme that we look forward to featuring at this or upcoming story times include: We Came to America by Faith Ringgold (Knopf, 2016), Why Am I Here? by Akin Duzakin and Constance Orbeck-Nilssen (Eerdmans, 2016), Joseph’s Big Ride by Terry Farish and Ken Daley (Annick Press, 2016), and My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald and Freya Blackwood (HMH, 2015).
The second idea that we’re acting on is inspired by an Instagram post from our indie colleagues at Aaron’s Books in Lititz, Pa.: providing free stamped postcards for kids and adults to, as the wise folks at Aaron’s put it, “let their elected representatives know how they feel about issues near and dear to them.” Being an active and engaged citizen and modeling that for kids is, like fostering empathy, always appropriate.
We’ll continue to look for ways we can make the bookstore a welcoming, enlightening, and engaging place for all.
What titles are ShelfTalker readers recommending this week, and how do you engage your young customers when difficult but important issues are top of mind?

In a glorious example of ShelfTalker synergy, my colleague Kenny Brechner just posted a terrific piece on selling active nonfiction yesterday. As proof of a trend perhaps, nonfiction has also been on my mind this week over in Texas.
We had the great pleasure of hosting Steve Sheinkin for school visits last week. His newest book, Undefeated, tells the riveting story of Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School football team, true underdogs who became one of the most successful teams in history and who Sheinkin credits with inventing the game of football as it exists today. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation who co-founded the National Football League, the team’s star Jim Thorpe was also the first Native American to win an Olympic Gold Medal and is still considered one of the best athletes in history. But Thorpe’s journey was neither rosy nor easy, and the racism and betrayals he faced make this, in Steve Sheinkin’s own words, “one of the most inspiring” and “one of the most heartbreaking” stories that he has ever told. While he was here, I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions. It was a great conversation about this important new book, and you can read the interview here. I also wanted to pull out something Steve said about making nonfiction appealing to kids. Continue reading →

As I’ll be packing for Winter Institute today I thought I’d also unpack some thoughts on  one of the educational session topics to be featured there, expanding active nonfiction sales. I’m really looking forward to that ABC session . Would that only be because I am on the panel? Not at all. Seriously though, it really is a great panel on an important topic.   I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to be on a panel with amiable luminaries like Tegan Tegani, Carol Moyer, and Sara Grochowski?
Right, so what is the definition of active nonfiction, you ask? The simple definition is “books in which the reader applies his or her reading to engaging in an activity.” From an adult perspective that could describe a travel book or a book on gardening. I would argue, though, that active nonfiction in children’s books differs from its adult cousin because of a fundamental difference in the nature of the audience. Young readers are never armchair travelers. An adult can read of a perilous ascent on K2 and savor the adventure in her mind. A fourth grader reading of the same adventure is sure to attempt to ascend the most perilous climb she can reach by foot, even if that turns out to be a mountain of pillows piled on a sofa. Thus I think it is fair to ask whether all juvenile nonfiction is active in an important sense.
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For children’s book people, the ALA Youth Media Awards are more exciting than the Oscars — and, at least for the past few years, a whole lot more diverse in their recognition of the award-worthy. Twenty categories honored 70 books, one video, and four audiobooks, and singled out four extraordinary people in our field. This was a joyous year with gratifying recognition for distinguished work and, in my case, few surprises. 
What did you think of the awards? What surprised you? Which books were overlooked that you’d had high hopes for?
(A brief discussion and full list of the awards below.)
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As my bookstore’s sideline buyer — one of about 15 hats I wear on any given day as proprietor of a wee small store — I love nothing more than stumbling across a new gift item that is book-related, has a great price point, and holds appeal for kids, teens, and adults.

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