Child friendly?

I've been thinking more lately about what "child friendly" means in terms of children's books, and if it's a valid assessment to evaluate a book. This comes partially out of that old Newbery discussion, and partially because I've found myself using that criticism regarding some books (that will remain nameless). "I liked the book" I've said, "But I just couldn't see kids getting into it." But of course, when that same criticism is made about a book I've edited, I bristle. Who are they to say that a book isn't child friendly? They're underestimating children. A book that some kids hate, others will love. I know this! We all know this! There is a very wide range of work that can be child friendly.

So, shame on me.

I'm fairly out of touch with what kids think of the books I edit, especially picture books. I do give books to kids I know and watch them interact with them, but these occasions are few and far between. I'm mainly drawing on my memory of the types of books I loved as a kid, the ones I read over and over again, and hope that there are kids today that have the same type of sensibility I had/have. (For novels, in terms of feedback, teens will write reviews and post them on blogs. We also get feedback from our hip scouts. Six-year-olds don't generally have blogs.)

One specific example of a book whose child friendliness is in question is Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein and Ed Young. Perhaps you've heard of it? (I write about it enough, don't I?) I know that there are people who find this to be a book more for adults, or older kids, but from the moment I read an early draft of the manuscript, I had faith that younger kids would love this story about a cat trying to find out the meaning of her name, and that kids would also respond to the gorgeous collage illustrations. Not every kid, of course, but many of them. And now that the book has been out about six months, the only evidence I have to go on is from what people tell me and from the reviews I read. Some of the reviews on Amazon vary from:

My favorite seven-year-old girl bookworm (and cat lover) begged me to stop reading it at about page three. And my favorite nine-year-old boy bookworm and ravenous reader wanted nothing to do with it.

to:

My four-year old grandson enjoyed the story as did his nine-year old sister.

and:

What a wonderful way to expose a young audience to meaningful simplicity. One reviewer said this wasn't a children's book but I guess it depends on the child. Curled up in bed with his dog and his cat my son pays rapt attention to this story.

One of my favorite reviews was one I read recently online. Here is the bit regarding its child appeal:

This is not your ordinary children’s book. But nevertheless, my almost 3-year old was completely absorbed as I read haiku after haiku. Sometimes I mistakenly believe that complex thoughts and art are beyond my toddler. But really I think if we as adults could appreciate art and words like a toddler must, we might have an unanticipated deep understanding of truth. That is, in one sense, the beauty of wabi sabi.

One thing I've been thinking about lately is how we in publishing will categorize books as "institutional" versus "commercial"--which maybe is another way of saying: "will sell mainly in libraries" versus "will sell mainly in bookstores" and also: "the type of books teachers and librarians need to introduce to a kid in order for him or her to like it" versus "truly kid friendly." I always hope that the books I edit will be successful in both ways, but generally, when I'm acquiring a book I do believe that it will be more successful in one over the other. And in the case of Wabi Sabi, I'm sure my publisher thought it would have more institutional appeal. But now, as it reaches its tenth week on the NYTimes Bestseller list, we've realized that it has become a true commercial hit (not that it hasn't been a success institutionally, too!).

Anyway, I suppose when people say "child friendly" they mean, "will be liked by most children." A good example would be the four "butt" books that Alison Morris highlighted on her PW blog recently (my personal favorite is the last one, Chicken Butt by Erica Perl, illustrated by Henry Cole).

It would be an interesting study to see how many kids, when forced to choose between Chicken Butt and Wabi Sabi, would choose the latter. If any of you lovely blog readers want to do a test study, I'd love to hear the results!

A question: have you ever been surprised by a book, either one that you thought would be a no-brainer in terms of kids liking it, but they turned out to not be interested, or vice versa--a book you were pretty sure they would hate, that it turned out that they loved?

The Publication Story of WABI SABI, Part 4 (the final chapter...I think!)

Read Parts 1, 2, and 3.

I last left off when the lost art for Wabi Sabi was found. The book printed beautifully, and it's now out in stores and has received two starred reviews so far, including one from Kirkus:

Reibstein's plain yet poetic text, which deftly incorporates original and traditional Japanese haiku, works harmoniously with Young's deceptively simple, vertically oriented collages of natural and manmade materials to create their own wabi sabi. Simply beautiful.

Our marketing department decided to make a short (3-5 minutes or so) video for the book to be distributed to some key accounts and also be posted on our website. We wanted to include the story of the lost art in the video, and as both versions of the art were at my office, I was to bring the art up to Ed's studio for the filming.

My assistant Connie carefully packaged up all the art so it would be manageable for me to carry by myself on the Metro North train. The film guy was due to arrive at Ed's studio at 3 pm, so I got on the train that arrived around 2:30. I had a rushed morning and no time for lunch, so I picked something up at Grand Central. The train was fairly empty at that time of day, and I had a row of seats to myself, but as I was about to eat some messy pasta, I thought it best to put the art on the overhead luggage rack to keep it safe and clean.

It was an uneventful trip, and I arrived at Ed's town right on schedule, gathered up all my stuff, and went out to find Ed who was picking me up. I saw him on the other end of the platform with his car and waved gaily at him. He waved back but had a bit of a perturbed look on his face. He put his hand out in a "what happened?" gesture, and all of a sudden, I knew.

I had left the art on the train.

I HAD LEFT THE ART ON THE TRAIN THAT HAD ALREADY PULLED OUT OF THE STATION.

ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod

"You left the art on the train?" Ed asked, with just a flash of irritation. Luckily for me, Ed is so Zen and understanding, and considering that he had been the one to lose the art in the first place, was even more understanding. Although, one might say this should have made him be less understanding--after all that the art had been through, how could I have been so careless?

"We'll get it back," he said. "It happens."

My mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do. I called information to get the MTA lost and found number. They informed me that they couldn't call the train because of federal regulations, but that when the train reached the end of the line, anything remaining on the train would be taken off, and would eventually be sent back down to the lost and found office in Grand Central. But I couldn't wait that long--we had a taping in 30 minutes! They said I could try the MTA police. I called Connie and she got on the case. In the meantime, I decided to get on the next train up (about 20 minutes later) and follow the art to the last stop, which luckily wasn't too far--about a half hour away.

Connie called and said that she spoke to the MTA police and that they were calling someone to check the train, and would call back to let her know the station where the package would be held. In the meantime, I also enlisted the help of the train ticket taker. When he took my ticket, I asked him if he was able to call other trains. He paused. "Why? What happened?" He asked. I explained my story. I told him that the MTA police was on the case. He shook his head. "They're not going to do anything," he said, "Let me see what I can do. I'll make some calls." He asked me some specific questions--which train, which car was I sitting in, what did the package look like, etc. I saw him making calls, but he had no news. Then he told me that at the very least, he now knew where the train was parked, and he would go on the train himself to look for the package when we arrived at the final station.

One stop away, he came up to me. "Someone will be waiting for us at the end of the platform," he said. "They have the package."

"THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!" I was so relieved and happy and grateful. I looked at him and blurted out, "Do you have any kids?"

His face lit up. "Two boys! Ages 2 and 5!"

"Perfect!" I said, "Give me your address. I'm going to send you a box of books for them."

"No, don't worry about it, I'm just doing my job."

But I felt that he had gone above and beyond. And it was the least I could do.

I got the package, called Ed, and hopped on the next train heading back. It turned out that the filmmaker had gotten lost and had arrived after 3:30. The train would get me back around 4. We were only an hour off schedule. The filmmaker, Ed, and I all had a good laugh about it. Of course, it was easy to laugh now that the art was safe and sound again.

The taping went quite well--here are a few pictures I took:

(Ed holding a wabi sabi material that he used in the art)

Half of the art stayed safely with Ed, and half of the art returned safely with me to the office for scanning. I kept it on my lap the whole ride back.

This video is still being edited--I saw a rough cut of it last week and it looks really great so far (Mark Reibstein was also interviewed in a separate taping out in California). I'll share it with all of you as soon as it's ready.

And that is the final chapter of my Wabi Sabi story. So far.

Oh, the stories that art could tell...

The Publication Story of WABI SABI, Part 3 (complete with the mystery of the missing art...)

To refresh your memory of the story, you can go back and read Parts 1 and 2. Where I left off was with Wabi Sabi was accepted in our acquisitions committee.

Because Ed Young lives not too far from NY City, he came down to meet with me and the designer at the time, our Creative Director Gail Doobinin. We discussed what the format of the book would be. Ed suggested the possibility of doing the book as an accordion format, so it could stand almost up as a Japanese screen would. But we fairly quickly moved on from this idea, as it seemed too complicated for this book, not "wabi sabi" enough--we wanted simplicity. But at the same time, we also wanted it to stand out, so we eventually settled on a larger-than-usual trim size (11 x 11), and as Ed imagined the images oriented more vertically than horizontally, we decided on a calendar orientation, so the book would open upwards, rather than open horizontally.

Ed got right to work on the art. At one point he brought the art into the office at a very early stage--it was hard for me to see what the finished pieces would look like, although I thought his choices of paper were gorgeous.

Gail and I went up to his studio at a later stage--his studio was a beautiful attic space with skylights:

I took pictures of the work-in-progress to send the author to see, here's a sampling:

When Ed was finished with the art, he brought it into our office in person and we oohed and ahhed over it.

It was gorgeous, and we felt it perfectly represented the essence of wabi sabi in it's raw, simple way.

We eventually sent the art back to Ed to have him do a few minor corrections. Ed was scheduled to return the art by a certain day, but when that day came, the agent said that there had been a family emergency and we weren't sure when we'd be getting the art back. During all this time, Ed was going through some tumultuous times at home, and we were of course understanding that family came first.

But a week later, Ed checked in with his agent and was shocked that we hadn't received the art yet. He had thought he had sent it down to us the week before.

uh oh.

So...where was the art?

What had happened was this: Ed's agent lives in his same town, and when he's unable to personally deliver his art, he would leave the art packaged up and ready to go at his agent's front door. In this case, Ed had the art for two different books to deliver, and had told his agent that he'd be delivering them both on the same day, only when the time came, only one book was ready on that day, and Wabi Sabi ended up being left at the front door a day later. As Ed was dealing with the aforementioned family emergency, he didn't call to confirm as he normally would, but assumed the agent would know if was there when only one book had been delivered the day before.

He was wrong.

When he was finally able to emerge from the emergency a week later, he found that everyone was wondering where the art was. He immediately called his agent, who checked the front door--no art. They checked with the neighbors to no avail.

At this point, Ed called to break the news to me. I was shocked, to be sure, but there wasn't anything to do. Ed thought that the art would turn up eventually, so all I could do was keep my fingers crossed and check eBay now and then to see if someone was trying to sell the art. Ed asked me if I would let Mark know, because he couldn't bear to break the news to him, so I did. Like me, Mark was shocked, but he took it in stride--what else could we do?

In the meantime, the police became involved, and the only record of what the art looked like was those pictures I had taken, so I forwarded those on. Ed's local paper also did a story on the missing art, and printed some of those photos as well.

Ed told me that if the art wasn't found, he would do the art over again. He said, "I can only promise you that it will be even better than the last round." That sounded good to me.

Months passed and the art hadn't surfaced, and so Ed decided to start again. He used those photographs I had taken as a jumping off point, but also took this opportunity for a second chance to correct some of the things he hadn't quite been happy about the first time around.

Before we knew it we were back on track.

There were some in-house changes that occurred during this time, and Gail was now focusing on designing novels, so Art Director Patti Ann Harris became involved in the process, and Saho Fujii was assigned as designer.

While Ed had worked on the art, Patti Ann, Saho, and I worked with production on the specs for the book. Most important was the type of paper to use--we thought that the subject matter and the collage illustrations would be best highlighted on uncoated paper, although because uncoated paper absorbs the paint more than coated, it would be difficult to get the same sharpness of detail and brightness of color that you can achieve with coated stock.

And finally, the art was done. Ed had thought it would take him 3 months, but it took him about half that time. He used the opportunity of doing the art over to change the style of art--this time, he used more material that he deemed wabi sabi. Here are a few of the spreads side by side, new and old:

new silver temple, original silver temple

new cover and original cover

new city scene, original city scene

We all agreed that the new art was, indeed, better than the last round--it was as if he had used the last round as a jumping off point to take the art to a new level. It was richer, deeper, more vibrant.

The art was in the production process--we finally sorted out the paper issue and although it was a struggle, we finally achieved the level of reproduction we wanted.

It was around this time we received a call.

The original art had been found!!!

One day, a woman showed up at the front door with the art. Ed asked her where she had gotten it, and she said it had been found in a local church. "Funny," Ed said, "I teach tai chi there every week." There was a flurry of confusion as to what had happened. Had Ed perhaps left the art at the church by mistake? He told me that he wouldn't have put it past himself, but his daughter had been with him when he dropped off the art at his agent's house, and she specifically remembered asking him what it was, and he had replied, "The art for Wabi Sabi."

The package had been opened, but everything inside was intact.

My best guess as to what happened was that someone had taken that art, opened it and wasn't sure what to do with it. Perhaps he or she saw the article about it in the paper, and decided to leave it at the church as a safe haven. Who knows whether or not he or she knew that Ed had a connection to the church.

"How does it look?" I asked, a bit nervously. Ed laughed, because he knew what I was getting at. "The new art is better," he assured me.

So, we had two complete sets of the art--what an odd situation to be in!

We decided to use the circumstances to our advantage. We showed both versions of the art at our Library Preview meeting, and also at ALA. We're currently producing a video about the book that highlights the situation and the two sets of art. Ed is using both sets in his talks and school visits.

So you see, this whole experience was very wabi sabi--we took what was unexpected, what was basically a disaster, but made it into something beautiful.

And so, the publication story has pretty much come to an end--but wait, there's more! There's one more chapter of this story, an epilogue of sorts, that I'd like to share. I'll write about next week, so stay tuned!

Edited to add: jump to Part 4! The final chapter...