{"id":737,"date":"2010-04-06T09:15:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T14:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2010\/04\/06\/books-gone-green\/"},"modified":"2010-04-06T09:15:11","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T14:15:11","slug":"books-gone-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=737","title":{"rendered":"Books Gone Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to the many lovely children’s books about<\/em> going green, we’ve been seeing some extremely appealing books that are themselves green: that is, books made of mostly recycled materials, and printed with vegetable inks. These books sometimes have an environmental theme, which is timely and terrific, but we’re also excited about a recent influx of fiction board books and activity books. Publishers are showing a real commitment when they make “regular” titles green, and not just their ecology-related titles. Healthier inks, less waste with greener processing materials, practices and byproducts, and happy little hands holding these books = win-win-win!
\n\"Let's\"Let's
\nWe’ve been selling Priddy Books’ Let’s Go Green<\/a> activity books like crazy. Kids like them, parents like them, they fly off the slatwall spinner display fast. It makes sense that the green angle is a strong selling point for consumable books, and for gifts (parents like to give earth-friendly, veggie-ink books to other families). And at $2.99 apiece, parents often buy all four books at once. (Note: the age indicator says 5+, but a customer reports that her 9-year-old loves them, as well.)
\n\"Little
\n\"LittleSome other favorites come from Innovative Kids’ Green Start<\/a> line. Board books in regular and tiny sizes feel good in your hands. Their pleasing palettes — colors against kraft brown backgrounds — manage to be both bright and calm. The two “towers” of mini books make great baby-shower gifts; in addition to looking good, they have sweet, simple text that is fun to read aloud to babies and toddlers.(Tower at left<\/em>; \"IKinterior detail of one of the books, right<\/em>)\"Green
\nInnovative Kids also has a set of green book-and-puzzle packages, as well as several floor puzzles, one of which sold to a customer who didn’t even notice the ‘green’ aspect but just loved the cute art. \"In
\nWe also like the board books aimed at the 3- to 5-year-olds, such as In the Garden<\/em>.
\n\"Little
\nSimon & Schuster has a new series called Little Green Books. The website describes the series thus: “Little Green BooksTM<\/sup> teaches kids to be eco-friendly. The books are made from recycled materials and cover topics such as the earth and recycling.” Inks aren’t mentioned, but I’d be surprised if such eco-focused books would have been made with petroleum-based inks. I like to think not.
\nThe Little Green series also offers something I haven’t seen elsewhere: 100% recycled fleece cloth books, made from cotton and recycled Polartec fleece to make very snuggly bedtime books. (Above, at left, an example withLittle Panda.
\n\"BagCandlewick Press<\/a> is taking a slightly different tack. Unlike the toasty-brown-colored books that signal recycled paper, their eco-friendly books may not announce themselves quite so obviously, but they exist! Some of their books have started to be produced using 100% post-consumer-waste covers and dustjackets and 30% post-consumer waste paper, including Ted Kooser and Barry Root’s Bag in the Wind<\/em> (pictured at left), Timothee De Fombelle’s Toby Alone<\/em> (both hardcover and paperback editions) and Tim Flannery’s We Are the Weather Makers: The History of Climate Change <\/em>(also both hc and pb editions). Gigi Amateau’s novel, A Certain Strain of Peculiar<\/em>, was printed on recycled paper with 30% post-consumer waste.
\nIf you’re interested in learning more about green publishing, The Barefoot Press<\/a>, a printing company, is a great resource. They’ve been in the green printing business since 1987, long before most printers were interested in pursuing more earth-friendly practices.
\nFinally, if you’re a consumer or business interested in replacing your traditional ink printer cartridges with soy-ink printer cartridges, they’re starting to become more readily available. Soyprint<\/a> is one source.
\nWe applaud all of these efforts. Please let us know about other truly eco-friendly publishing programs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to the many lovely children’s books about going green, we’ve been seeing some extremely appealing books that are themselves green: that is, books made of mostly recycled materials, and printed with vegetable inks. These books sometimes have an environmental theme, which is timely and terrific, but we’re also excited about a recent influx […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}