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RE: Teen, YA, and women-related nonfiction
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From: sully_at_sully-writer.com
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 05:41:23 -0700
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 05:41:23 -0700
I find it interesting what you say about "mainstream publishers" not producing "Common Core material." If by "mainstream publishers" you mean trade publishers, I disagree. I've been teaching continuing education courses on Common Core and nonfiction for librarians and teachers and my focus is entirely on books from trade publishers which are much better suited as so-called "Common Core-material" than the kind of cookie cutter-style of books coming from series publishers like Capstone, Enslow, Rosen, etc. The nonfiction published by trade publishers, although certainly smaller in volume, is far superior in quality. The books are better written, better researched, and far more nuanced and innovative in approach to their respective subjects than anything found in books coming out as part of series packages.
The kinds of nonfiction coming from trade publishers these days is far more wide-ranging and of far greater quality than you imply. Having served on Sibert recently and the Orbis Pictus now, I'm reviewing just about everything coming from trade publishers these days and I can assure you that's the case.
The reality of Common Core standards is that the standards are so broad that just about any book can fit them. The challenge is to get teachers to use the highest quality books with their students and those are the books that are being produced by trade publishers.
Edward T. Sullivan, Rogue Librarian
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [ccbc-net] Teen, YA, and women-related nonfiction
From: Lionel Bender <lionheart.brw@btinternet.com>
Date: Mon, June 09, 2014 6:06 am
To: CCBC-Net <ccbc-net@lists.wisc.edu>
As a book packager producing children's illustrated nonfiction for a range of publishers and as initiator of the 21st Century Children's Nonfiction Conference, I am aware of many of the problems of Teen, YA, and Women-related NF.
First, publishers in general believe Teen and YA kids do not read many or any books—fiction or nonfiction—just as they used to believe boys don't read. They can find lots of evidence to support this, particularly for NF. Result: There are few of these books on the market, and there is little sign of things changing among mainstream publishers. A few new publishers have emerged to fill this niche, but most of the books they produce are not Common Core material but lifestyle guides, edgy subjects, or very much at the pseudo-adult end of the spectrum. These publishers are making inroads, so there is a chance other publishers will jump on the bandwagon.Second, there are Teen and YA titles out there that are perfect for Common Core, but they are hard to find. The big NF educational, school-and-library publishers such as Lerner, Capstone, and Rosen do produce biographies about sportswomen, famous women in history, and famous women in science—admittedly a fraction of the number about famous men—but you won't find these in bookstores. Why? Because these titles do not fly off shelves, bookstores don't stock them. If you ask a bookstore to supply them, it possibly won't or even can't. Publishers don't want to deal with small orders or it is economically unviable for bookstores to make them, so bookstores have to resort to dealing with wholesalers. Wholesalers won't stock such books because they don't fly off the shelves. As an individual, buying direct from a publisher is far too costly. And now, some publishers products are effectively unavailable from online stores such as Amazon. So these books are hard to find and sometimes too costly to buy. You have to trawl through each and every publisher's website to find them.Because such books are not widely read or are hard to find, they are not widely reviewed. So teachers, librarians, parents, bookstore owners, let alone children, are not aware they exist.Random reports do show that older kids do like to read NF. But like the boys saga, they read what interest them—celebrities, lifestyle choices—rather than what they are given or can easily find.As for authors self-publishing such titles or creating ebooks of them, if the books are illustrated they are either too costly to produce as picture research and picture reproduction fees prices are prohibitively high, or software does not yet exist for creating a standard ebook format suitable for all readers.Lionel Bender
Bender Richardson White
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