From the January/February 2003 issue of The Horn Book Magazine

Letters to the Editor

I read Daniel Hade’s article “Storyselling: Are Publishers Changing the Way Children Read?” (September/October 2002) with great interest. I’m not surprised that people are discussing the effect current trends in publishing might be having on young readers.

However, Hade doesn’t have all of his facts straight. Though he complains about “corporate greed” being responsible for the proliferation of licensed character merchandise, in the great majority of cases publishers and their parent companies make no income from the merchandise based on popular children’s characters. Publishers usually make money from the sale of books only, while the artists, or their agents and their estates, hold the rights to all commercial tie-in products. Then licensing or production companies buy the film and commercial rights and offer sub-licenses to manufacturers.

I also bristle at the suggestion that those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies — the halcyon days of children’s literature, according to Mr. Hade — read more, or better, books than children growing up today. Although there was wonderful funding for libraries in years gone by, it wasn’t Horn Book stars that made books fly off the shelves. It was visibility. What was the one book every girl in my fourth-grade class read in 1969? Not The Witch of Blackbird Pond. It was a novelization of The Parent Trap. How is that any different from the popularity of The Princess Diaries, or any book that ties in with a film or TV series today?

Children usually select books based on what’s familiar to them. Even avid readers want more by their favorite authors and in their favorite genres before they’ll choose more adventurous fare. And all of us who work with children know some kids who have to be convinced to even try to read — I’m glad there are books out there with characters these children already know.

As a children’s book editor, that doesn’t bother me at all. I publish books I would have loved as a child and don’t worry that most aren’t destined for merchandise heaven. Trade publishers still concentrate primarily on books that will never spawn a single plush toy. I also know that there’s no big brand that wasn’t once just a little book — a little book that a child found, and stayed up late reading; and that other children then found, and read, and loved. The book’s characters may begin to appear on lunchboxes, sheets, and alarm clocks, but that isn’t the point: to each child who claims it, that book is still her own.

Elizabeth Law
Associate Publisher, Viking Children’s Books
New York, New York

I write reluctantly with a criticism of Horn Book, because in my long experience as a college teacher of children’s literature, this excellent resource seldom warrants criticism.

The September issue features Daniel Hade’s excellent and comprehensive article “Storyselling.” For publishing this provocative piece, my thanks and that of my students, made aware through it of perversions in publishing for children. What I strongly object to is the positive review in the same issue of Jerry Seinfeld’s picture book, Halloween.

Hade, noting that recent mergers have left children’s publishing in the control of large media conglomerates, points out that these corporate giants expect profits “in the range of twelve to fifteen percent.” (Little, Brown, who published Halloween, is owned by AOL Time Warner.) To achieve these profits, he reports, “publishers are more likely to turn to celebrity-authored books, series books, and books with television or movie tie-ins.” Hade worries, as do all of us who crave books of high literary quality for young readers, that since “the mass marketplace selects which books will survive,” the children’s book will continue to become less “a cultural and intellectual object and more an entertainment looking for mass appeal.”

Celebrity-authored books do indeed have mass appeal. My graduate students must struggle to objectively evaluate the literary merit of works by Katie Couric, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Lithgow, and others. Their critical sense is blunted by dust jackets featuring familiar faces from television and movies. I would hope that Horn Book reviewers are not so manipulated. But the review of Halloween declares that “the book’s holiday theme and humorous voice will draw readers of all ages, but its sardonic reverie will probably have adults laughing hardest of all.”

This book exemplifies most of the bad publishing practices Hade describes in his article. The production — surely the word book should be reserved for a work with claim to some literary value — carries a celebrity’s name as author. Pictures throughout blatantly advertise brand-name candy. One suspects that candy companies subsidized the publishing of the book. Intended for young readers, the book perpetuates ageist ideas by picturing an older woman as an ugly crone. While ingratitude and rudeness may be acceptable to some in a postmodern world where the outrageous is commonplace, surely we still don’t want our children to see the kindness of others rewarded with insults. Instead of disposing privately of the candy he doesn’t want, Jerry in the book throws it to bounce off the head of the neighbor who offered it.

We need more articles like Daniel Hade’s “Storyselling” but surely no more positive reviews of merchandise like Halloween.

Glenna Sloan
Professor of children’s literature, Queens College, CUNY
New York, New York

The reviewer, Peter D. Sieruta, responds:

First, let me allay your fears that Horn Book reviewers can be manipulated by “dust jackets featuring familiar faces from television and movies.” Our heads aren’t that easily turned. While dozens of celebrity-authored books pass through the Horn Book offices, very few receive any critical notice in these pages. There’s a reason for that. But an editorial decision was made to review Halloween because we liked its humor and attitude, despite some reservations that the book would have greater appeal to adults than to children.

In response to your specific comments about content, I see no ageism in the depiction of the elderly neighbor. (And you certainly never heard me call her an “ugly crone.”) Yes, her appearance is somewhat exaggerated, but so are all the characters in the book — including the protagonist. Jerry’s treatment of this neighbor is insulting, but I no more believe that he’d actually bounce a marshmallow off her head than I believe he’d really drag a cart behind him and examine each piece of candy with a loupe. Within this context, his behavior seems in keeping with the entire over-the-top satiric scenario.
I can’t address your suspicion that candy companies subsidized the publication of the book; I suggest you contact the publisher and inquire if this was so. But a poll of contemporary trick-or-treaters would likely reveal that Mr. Seinfeld is dead right concerning children’s preference for brand-name candy over, say, apples.

You probably won’t be seeing a lot of celebrity offerings reviewed in the Horn Book, but we will continue to evaluate each title on an individual basis. If we think a book merits attention, you’ll read about it here — and we welcome any debate that it inspires.

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