Collecting Childrens Picturebooks

American Library Association Announces Literary Award Winners

BOSTON, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Library Association (ALA) today announced the top books, audiobooks and video for children and young adults – including the Caldecott, King, Newbery and Printz awards – at its Midwinter Meeting in Boston.

A list of all the 2010 Newbery and Caldecott award winners follows:

John Newbery Medal for most outstanding contribution to children's literature

"When You Reach Me," written by Rebecca Stead, is the 2010 Newbery Medal winner. The book is published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books.

Four Newbery Honor Books also were named: "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice" by Phillip Hoose and published by Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan Children's Publishing Group; "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly and published by Henry Holt and Company; "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin and published by Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers; and "The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg" by Rodman Philbrick and published by The Blue Sky Press, An Imprint of Scholastic Inc.

Randolph Caldecott Medal for most distinguished American picture book for children

"The Lion & the Mouse," illustrated and written by Jerry Pinkney, is the 2010 Caldecott Medal winner. The book was published by Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers.

Two Caldecott Honor Books also were named: "All the World," illustrated by Marla Frazee, written by Liz Garton Scanlon and published by Beach Lane Books; and "Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors," illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, written by Joyce Sidman and published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:18 AM | Permalink

By nature not an overreactor, but fearing for the lead-free life of my children, their children, and children in near and far locales, including Eastville in southwestern North Dakota, decided to part with my five thousand or so collectible children's book collection. The value of the collection, the vast majority first editions, some rare, some unique, with fifty pieces of original artwork - paintings, sketches, watercolors - pales in comparison to the risk of a child, in some distant future, ingesting any of the works as lunch. Lamenting the absence of even a single certificate attesting to the lead-free status of one of the books, I curse the publishing houses of year's past with their backward looking ways. Couldn't they have foreseen the rise of China and spontaneous outbreak of lead dastardly embedded in our children's products? It would have been so obvious fifty years ago, clear as forecasting tomorrow's stock market.

I was perplexed for days thinking of a surefire method to rid the earth of this unwanted horde. The objective was zero risk of a first edition Cat In The Hat ever becoming a baby's teething blanket, since the collection might be disbursed upon my death or dismemberment. Or sale, god forbid. My aroused conscious led to months of sleepless nights anticipating the ban on selling of children's books on eBay, Amazon, and the like. So proactively ridding myself of the demon host of books will release the inner anxieties worrying about the infallible Pope-like decisions from the intelligent and very clued-in managers of aforementioned entities, who are certain to follow the letter of the law. No, the method of destruction must be total, not just minimizing the risk of one of my first editions becoming some child's breakfast, but iron-clad zero tolerance, similar to how effectively corporate policy prevents the viewing of pornography on one's work computer.

Securing space on a rocket ship is no small endeavor. For one, the charges are in large part calculated by weight. Five thousand children's books weigh more than a mouse, but less than a house. The relative neighborhood is four tons, somewhere north of eight thousand pounds, so mucho dineros to lift the load into the heavens. Second, most of the dad-blasted rocket blasting services send the payload up and orbit the earth, not exit earth's orbit. For goodness sake, what good is that? Having my collection orbiting the earth for perpetuity was far too risky. Why, what if space travel becomes common place in a couple of hundred years? Easily, some 7-year old could start munching on a Maurice Sendak first edition while reading a Tomi Ungerer. Had to be iron-clad, zero tolerance, rid the earth. Costs be damned.

Eventually I scheduled and commissioned an earth-orbit exiting rocketship to take this non-certificated potentially lead-laden payload of death into the bowels of the Sun. Good ol' Sol never let anyone down, been burning for millions of years. Hot too, to the tune of twenty-seven million degrees Fahrenheit. That will roast a wiener or two, and burn like hell the condemned. No trial was necessary, the books a victim of their certifiableless past.

No regrets while watching the rocket leave the launch pad then into the high atmosphere of the sky before disappearing from sight. Only relief that justice had indeed been served, children saved, my soul redeemed. And much thankfulness for the Solomon-like wisdom written into the Public Law 110-314, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.

For more on how 'CPSIA of 2008' impacts bookselling, please see Bookshop Blog.

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 05:45 PM | Permalink

Dr. Seuss and the Beginner Books

Up until the mid-1950s, there was a degree of separation between illustrated educational books and illustrated picturebooks. That all changed, dramatically and with much national fanfare, with the 1957 publication of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat In The Hat (Random House). Here was an early reader, full of 220 madly rhyming words, which made its way into our elementary school classrooms.

The Cat In The Hat is a tremendously important book. Not just an important picturebook or an important children’s book, but an important book without any qualifiers! The publication of the book in 1957 forever changed the way in which children would learn to read and be educated. Reading COULD be fun!

The following table is an excerpt from the Children's Picturebook Price Guide. The estimated values are for first edition books, with dust jackets. The Children's Picturebook Price Guide explains in understandable terms the methods to correctly identify first edition Dr. Seuss books.

The Beginning of Beginner Books

The Cat In The Hat was published by Random House. However because of it’s success, an independent publishing company was formed, called Beginner Books. Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was the president and editor.

Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. The second book in the series was nearly as popular, The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, published in 1958.

Springing from this series of beginning readers were such standards as A Fly Went By (1958), Sam and the Firefly (1958), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Go, Dog. Go! (1961), Hop On Pop (1963), and Fox in Socks (1965), each a monument in the picturebook industry, and also significant in the historical development of early readers. All are still in print and remain very popular over forty years after their initial publication.

Creators in the Beginner Book series were such luminaries as Jan & Stan Berenstain, P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Helen Palmer (Mr. Geisel’s wife). The Beginner Books dominated the children’s picturebook market of the 1960’s, and still plays a significant role today within the phases of students’ reading development.

Before The Cat

Prior to the publication of his first children’s book in 1937, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (Vanguard Press, 1937)), Theodor Seuss Geisel was a prominent and successful humorist illustrator for such magazines as Judge and Life.

By the time of The Cat In The Hat's publication, Dr. Seuss was a very successful children’s book illustrator, having published twelve children’s books, three of which had won Caldecott Honor awards. Actually, prior to the publication of The Cat In The Hat, one could easily say that Dr. Seuss had already had two successful illustration careers, one as a humorist and one as a picturebook creator.

John Hersey and Dr. Seuss

Mr. Geisel created The Cat In The Hat in reaction to a Life Magazine article by Pulitzer Prize winning author John Hersey, published in the May 24, 1954 issue, titled “Why Do Students Bog Down On First R? A LOCAL COMMITTEE SHEDS LIGHT ON A NATIONAL PROBLEM: READING.” In the article, Hersey was critical of the then current state of school primers,

In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. [Existing primers] feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls.” “In bookstores, anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.

Hersey’s arguments were enumerated in some ten pages of Life Magazine, which was the leading periodical of its time. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma with student’s reading, toward the end of the article, Hersey redundantly asked:

Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate—drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, “Dr. Seuss,” Walt Disney?

Geisel responded to this “challenge” by rigidly limiting himself to a small set of words from an elementary school vocabulary list, then crafted a story based upon two randomly selected words—cat and hat. The results of this personal challenge are nothing short of amazing!

After The Cat

Successful before the publication of the The Cat In The Hat, after it’s publication, Dr. Seuss became an ‘overnight’ national phenomenon.

After the publication of The Cat In The Hat, numerous feature articles were published in Life, Look and other prominent periodicals. The book’s characters, along with other Seuss creations, were extended into toys and other products, occurring long before co-merchandising and line extensions became commonplace for children’s character marketing.

Values for the First Fifty Beginner Books

The values in the following table are for first edition books, with dust jackets. In most cases, the first edition book cannot be properly identified without the dust jacket.

Collecting First Edition Beginner Books

First printings of the each of Beginner Books published from 1957-to-1973 should be considered by children's book collectors. Many collectors are on the lookout for the Dr. Seuss books, however there has not been as keen an interest in the non-Seuss Beginner Books. The non-Seuss books are relatively inexpensive in the market place, however locating first printings is difficult. Part of the difficulty is due to the uncertainty in the industry in identifying true first printings of the early Beginner Books. We are in the process of publishing identification information on our website, which will help to rectify this ongoing issue.

In 2001 Publisher's Weekly created their lists of the All-Time Bestselling Children's Books, for both hardcover and paperback books. We consider copies sold one of the key factors in the collectibility of a children's book (when the initial printing is low relative to the eventual copies sold). Twenty of the Beginner Books made the list, with eleven in the All-Time Bestselling top 50. Several of the Beginner Books are from the 'Bright and Early' sub-series which was started in 1967.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Seuss books dominate the list, although all of the first printings are desirable. Some of the non-Seuss first printings are very difficult to come by, especially Are You My Mother?, Go, Dog, Go! and Put Me In The Zoo, each of which have out sold many of the Dr. Seuss books. You should also be on the lookout for first printings of a A Fly Went By and Book of Riddles.

The first twelve Beginner Books were published between 1957-to-1959 and should be on your 'watch for' list. First editions are easily identifiable, as all but Cat In The Hat state 'First Printing' on the copyright page. We've documented first edition identification points for Cat In The Hat on our blog.

Another key book in the series is Helen Palmer's A Fish Out of Water, illustrated by P.D. Eastman. Palmer was Geisel's wife, and wrote several of the early Beginner Books. However we think Dr.Seuss should be given co-authorship as we wrote in an article A Story Of Two Fish: Dr. Seuss Out Of Water, comparing A Fish Out Of Water to Seuss's Gustav The Goldfish.

Identifying First Edition Beginner Books

Within the hobby, to our knowledge, a method for identifying first printings of Beginner Books has not yet been published. Soon we hope to resolve this absence.

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 02:45 PM | Permalink

Where Have All The Books Gone?

Based upon our experience, there are fewer key collectible picturebooks on the online market than a year ago, continuing a trend we have seen over the past couple of years.

Try a search on any of the metasearch book finding websites, such as ABEBooks, Addall, Bookfinder, or the ABAA, for first edition Caldecott Medal books, or Beginner Books, or I Can Read Books, or Seuss books. Sort the results from high price to low price (the thought being the high priced books would most likely be first editions), and see how many books turn up. The results will show that many first edition books are not currently being offered for sale.

Money Can’t Buy Everything

We publish a search for the first twenty Caldecott Medal books three or four times a year (we perform the search monthly, and publish it less frequently). We last published the survey in February, and the results were a bit eye opening.

For the first twenty Caldecott Medal books, in first edition format, seven of the titles were not being offered for sale! We found only 27 individual copies for sale, with four copies of 1952 winner The Biggest Bear being offered (several incorrectly I suspect, since the $2.75 price on the DJ flap is required to identify a true first printing).

If one were to extend the search to cover all of the seventy Caldecott Medal books, perhaps as many as 15-to-20 would not be for sale on the market as first edition books.

In a world in which money can buy nearly everything, it could not buy a complete set of first edition Caldecott Medal books!

Given the proper monetary motivation, a book scout could probably find and purchase a complete set of first edition Caldecott Medal books. Probably. It would take upwards of a year, even for the well connected book scout, and cost $60-to-$80,000 (in the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide, we value the set of first edition Caldecott Medal books at $52,000 in Very Good plus condition).

Somewhere, yet Nowhere: Other Key Children’s Books

Try searching for key early franchise books from such staples as Curious George, or Madeline, Harold and the Purple Crayon, or Babar. The first edition books are not available. A key example is a first edition Curious George. One has recently surfaced for sale, and will be auctioned in July by PBA Galleries. It is very likely to reach $10,000, however some have thought as high as $20,000! There are no auction records for a first edition Curious George, and it’s been seven years since one has surfaced for sale.

Try searching for specific illustrator books, such as Marjorie Flack or Robert McCloskey, or Jean de Brunhoff, or Wanda Gag, or Virginia Lee Burton, or Roger Duvoisin, or Hardie Gramatky, or Lois Lenski, or the d’Aulaire’s, Petersham’s, or Hader’s. The more common first edition books are found for sale, however the scarcer editions are not surfacing on a regular basis, if at all.

The first edition books exist, however they exist somewhere in collector’s bookshelves, and are nowhere to be found in booksellers’ inventory.

As Values Increase, Supply Will Increase

Market values will have to rise in order for the supply of key first edition books to surface. This seems counterintuitive. Key first edition books have been absorbed by collectors, or could be in bookseller’s inventory, yet are not surfacing for sale. As prices in the market rise, some of these books will become available for sale.

We’ve seen a slight increase in values since our initial price guide was published, and the next edition (due in early 2008) will reflect this marginal increase. However, the price guide will only reflect the prices in the market, and cannot be anticipatory of where prices might escalate.

As the bookselling public becomes better informed of the values of key children’s books, and the knowledge slowly seaps into the conscious of the general population, more first edition books will surface. We hope.

Next: State of The Hobby, Part III: The New Class of Bookselling Masses

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The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier we posted a column titled “What Books To Collect,” which provided several categories of books or illustrators for various economic levels of collecting. Today and over the next couple of posts, we would like to discuss the state of the children’s picturebook collecting hobby, and provide some background information on the current market place.

A Hobby In It’s Infancy

The hobby of collecting first edition contemporary picturebooks is in it’s infancy. In support of this claim:

1.   There are only a handful of collectible children’s bookselling specialists, and many concentrate their efforts on older antiquarian material.

2.   The number of children’s book collectors today is relatively small, as compared to the number we anticipate will participate in the future.

3.   The majority of the adult population do not consider first edition children’s picturebooks to have substantial monetary value. The hobby is somewhat analogous to comic books and baseball cards during the infancy of the respective hobbies.

·         Just twenty years ago people were throwing away vintage baseball cards because there was no public perception of value. Today, many baseball cards from the 1950’s and 1960’s are worth thousands of dollars. (Note: Mickey Mantle’s 1952 Topps baseball card is valued at $15,000- $20,000.)

·         Just thirty years ago you could find discarded comic books from the 1940’s for sale for a pittance in used books and thrift stores, because there was no public perception of value. Today, Superman and Batman comic books from the 1940’s are worth tens of thousands; early Spiderman comics from the 1960’s are worth thousands (Note: Action #1, the 1937 first appearance of Superman. Is valued in the hundreds of thousands.)

I am not suggesting the value of first edition children’s picturebooks will reach the astonomical prices of rare comic books; only presenting the above as somewhat analogous situations. Hyperbole and I are not usually compatible.

4.   The majority of elementary school teachers and librarians, the group closest to the hobby, do not consider children’s picturebooks to have substantial monetary value. Not only are elementary school teachers and librarians the closest to the hobby, their reading recommendations and ‘prescriptions’ to children and parents, gained from knowledge, experience, and collegial associations, determine the long-term publication success of many of the books the hobby defines to be collectibles.

5.   The current contemporary children’s picturebook market is very Seuss-, Sendak-, and Caldecott-centric, the Big Three. The high market value of their first editions has seeped into the knowledge base of general bookselling (i.e. not limited to children’s books), therefore many, many booksellers are aware and on the lookout for examples. However the non-specialist children’s booksellers do not get much deeper than the aforementioned Big Three.

Adolescence, The Next Phase

When one takes a bird’s eye view of the current state, I think the hobby will eventually place greater emphasis on 'years-in-print' and 'copies sold' as measures of collectibility and desireability. The important collectible picturebooks are those which have stayed in print, unadulterated, for decades.

Consider Madeline, in print for 70 years, and still being read by today’s children. How many other ‘things’ are enjoyed, unchanged, seventy years after the original publication? A quick glance at Publisher’s Weekly list of all-time bestselling children’s books will show a plethora of classics which have sold millions of copies, been read to or read by tens of millions of children, and unchanged after decades.

·         Many of the books are ‘A’ list books, however many are not. Books like Marcus Pfister’s Rainbow Fish, or Margret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon, or Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or P.D. Eastman’s Go, Dog. Go!, or Laura Numeroff’s If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, or Sam McBratney’s Guess How Much I Love You?, or Jan Brett’s The Mitten, or Janell Cannon’s Stelleluna, or Marc Brown’s Arthur Goes To School. And so forth.

·         Each of these books are underappreciated in the current state of the hobby – books barely considered collectibles, and then by only a handful of collectors and booksellers. Yet, I would wager, each of these books will be in print for decades hence, to be enjoyed by millons of more children and parents in the years to come. What is the future worth of these first editions?

The Astute Collector and The Not-So-Smart Hobby

Several weeks ago we posted a column on ‘Factors Affecting Collectibility,’ identifying six key factors which impact the desireablity and value of a children’s picturebook. These factors are our personally developed list of factors, and as yet have not been vetted within the hobby. They are, how shall we say, in development.

The astute collector can leverage this period of development by focusing on books not yet held in high regard within the collectible picturebook market. What can you do? Develop your own list of factors, factors currently under weighted in the market, and target those books and types of books (the prerequisite being the books are appealing to your personally).

Currently, in its state of infancy, i.e. disjointed development, the collective intelligence of the ‘hobby’ is not nearly as smart as the astute collector. As more is written within the hobby, and knowledge shared, this gap will narrow, quickly, as the hobby matures. The collective intelligence of the children’s picturebook market will overtake that of the individual collector. But that is not today.

Next: State of The Hobby, Part II: Where Have All The Books Gone?

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This blog and our website focuses on collecting and valuing first edition children’s picturebooks. We try to stay on subject as much as possible, and refrain from presenting material that strays too far from the hobby. Picturebooks are the center of our attentions.

Some of our readers - parents, teachers, educators, and feminists - will find the following research article of keen interest, Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children’s Picture Books: A 21st Century Update.

The research was performed at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, by Mykol C. Hamilton, David Anderson, Michelle Broaddus, and Kate Young. It appears to be even handed and performed without bias.

This study is based upon a sampling of 200 books published since 2001, including all Caldecott award books. The authors found a “persistence of sexism in picture books.”

We present this information not as an endorsement or indictment. Instead, for those with an interest, read the excerpt, then follow the link to read the entire research document, and develop your own thoughts, opinions, and course of action.

Abstract.

Gender stereotyping and under-representation of girls and women have been documented in children’s picture books in the past, in the hope that improvements would follow. Most researchers have analyzed award winning books. We explored sexism in top selling books from 2001 and a 7-year sample of Caldecott award winning books, for a total of 200 books.

There were nearly twice as many male as female title and main characters. Male characters appeared 53% more times in illustrations. Female main characters nurtured more than male main characters did, and they were seen in more indoor than outdoor scenes. Occupations were gender stereotyped, and more women than men appeared to have no paid occupation.

Few differences were found between Caldecott award books and other books. A comparison of our book sample to 1980s and 1990s books did not reveal reduced sexism. The persistence of sexism in picture books and implications for children and parents are discussed.

Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children’s Picture Books: A 21st Century Update

Does Sexism in Picture Books Matter?

First, common sense suggests that gender bias in books matters—that stereotyped portrayals of the sexes and under-representation of female characters contribute negatively to children’s development, limit their career aspirations, frame their attitudes about their future roles as parents, and even influence their personality characteristics.

Second, experimental research strongly suggests that gender bias in picture books is harmful to children. Schau and Scott (1984) reviewed 21 studies on the effects of sexist vs. nonsexist children’s instructional materials (e.g., male versus female characters; sexist versus nonsexist generic pronouns), and discovered a consistent tendency for sexist materials to strengthen children’s biases.

In one study (Ashton, 1978) 3-5 year old children read gender-biased or -unbiased children’s picture books. Children who read biased books later made more stereotypic toy choices. Based on these and other studies, Tognoli, Pullen, and Lieber (1994) concluded that gender bias in children’s books gives boys a sense of entitlement and lowers girls’ self-esteem and occupational aspirations. Moreover, Weitzman, Eifler, Hokada, and Ross (1972) argued that the dearth of female characters teaches both sexes that girls are less worthy than boys.

Other researchers have concluded that children’s literature provides girls and boys with standards of masculinity and femininity (Peterson & Lach, 1990), offers socially sanctioned behavioral models that children may imitate (St. Peter, 1979), and presents a basic model for understanding oneself and others (Rachlin & Vogt, 1974).

For the rest of the research article, see Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Children’s Picture Books: A 21st Century Update.

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Several weeks ago, we garnered a   by being tagged by Fuse #8 Production in the "Someone Believes I Think!" post.

The idea originated in February from The Thinking Blog's  tagging five blogs which make you think (for those tagged, below, click on the link to see guidelines for tagging thinking blogs).

Certainly a unique idea - "to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!" Thinking has oft been described as a mix of perspiration and hard work. To the five blogs that follow, keep the perspiration to yourselves, and a modest "thank you!" for the hard work.

Book Collectors

Kenneth Sullivan's discussion on Modern First editions, Signed Limited editions, and other book collecting topics. There are bookseller blogs galore on the web, most are, eh…, monologues? rants? diatribes?, etc..., on a variety of 'topics-of-the-week', those easy to write opinions many bloggers feel is their sacred duty to pontificate upon. Not so Book Collectors – Mr. Sullivan actually provides information related to the hobby of collecting books! For starters, try either the article  on E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime or To Kill A Mockingbird.

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast 

"Our vision for this blog is pretty simple: we’re going to talk about the books we read. We read lots of different kinds of books: picture books for toddlers, memoirs, young adult fiction, graphic novels, Man Booker Prize-winning high-art metafiction, whatever. And we’ll write about them, whenever we can, in the hopes that we can

a. let you, the reader, know about a book that you might like to read, too; and
b. inspire discussion about said books."

We love the author interviews on Seven Things, which are much more than the usual list of suspect questions. Try the MT. Anderson interview and see if you too don't get hooked.

The Brookshelf

"A children's librarian thoughts, ideas, and news about children's books from yesteryear."

Among the plethora of librarians and teacher blogs on the web, the brookshelf stands apart by providing thoughtful reviews on forgotten books, gems of the past nearly lost among the hoard of Potter wannebe's gracing the shelf of the local Barnes & Noble and such.

Bookride

"It's a guide to the most wanted and collected books. There is some evaluation of why the book is wanted, what it is worth - with a range of selling prices, some trivia, apercus and bon mots, a few anecdotes, so called jokes and occasional rants."

Nigel posts on an eclectic measure of first edition books, from Harry Potter to Kerouac's On The Road to Wuthering Heights, offering humorous opinions and anecdotes relevent to book collectors. Highly readable.

The Publishing Contrarian

Lynne W. Scanlon, the self proclaimed Wicked Witch of Publishing offers regular posts on the inside workings of the publishing industry. Not for the faint of heart, she offers brutally honest information and advice, of special importance to the prospective, as yet unpublished, author.

Wannabe Author Syndrome: Cheap, Craven & Conned?

"I am so tired of hearing unpublished writers (I won’t call a writer an author until he/she can actually show me a bound book or a buyable online version) wail about not being able to find a literary agent or get published or get readers to buy direct. Last night I practically leapt across a dinner table to throttle a wannabe author because he simply could not or would not absorb what I was telling him—that what he desperately needed was someone to assess his book and let him know if it was good or bad."

 Click on the article's title to read the rest.

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From Publisher's Weekly: 

For Better or Worse, Used Book Sales Grow

Trade publishers ambivalent; online businesses prosper

by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 4/2/2007

"Prompted in part by Amazon.com's decision to sell used trade books in 2004, the Book Industry Study Group commissioned a report in 2005 to determine the size and composition of the used book market. Those findings, released in fall 2005, confirmed the fears of publishers—that used trade books had grown into a significant market, with sales estimated at $589 million in 2004—while providing proof to retailers about the opportunity afforded by used books. But what has happened in the market since that study?

Despite their concerns, publishers have found few ways to stop used sales; in fact, while no new figures are available, the used book market for trade titles appears to have grown by double digits in 2006. The good news for publishers, however, is that the increase in used book sales has not resulted in the collapse of sales of new trade titles. Preliminary sales figures from the AAP show sales of adult titles in 2006 up slightly, consistent with gains of recent years. That's cold comfort for some publishers who speculated that sales could have been higher if not for the siphoning of sales by used books."

For the complete article, CLICK HERE. 

Links Are Our Friends

The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even with this disparity, there are areas of interest for every pocket book. With this in mind, we wanted to offer some thoughts on various dollar-value levels for collectible picturebooks.

The Book Collector's Mantra - Learn, Learn, Learn!

Ours is a growing hobby. As such, there are many unexplored nooks and crannies within the picturebook hobby. Find them. Learn, learn, learn, then find them. Astute early adopters often benefit in the long run. The key is to understand the factors impacting a book’s collectibility and subsequent value, and being insightful enough to benefit. The benefit is buying a collectible book in the present for less then it would cost in the future.

The Bookseller's Perspective

Booksellers cannot afford to have a long-term perspective when deciding to purchase this or that book. They buy books at wholesale or less, then sell them quickly to turn a profit. The business model strongly favors turnover of their book inventory. This works to the advantage of the astute book collector.

Most booksellers are generalists, or specialists in other areas of the vast book collecting spectrum. There are only a handful of children’s bookselling specialists, and in most cases specialize in older antiquarian materials. Because of this, the astute hobbyist can often find contemporary ‘bargains’ in used and collectible bookstores.

Important Caveat

Collect books that you enjoy. Enjoy the books you collect.

The lists that follow tend toward traditionalist children’s picturebook collecting, and should be used as guides to develop your own collecting interests.

The intention is to help you spend less for books of your interest.

Presumptions 

The following lists are for first edition hardcover picturebooks, with dust jacket.

• Learn to identify first edition books by key children’s book publishers (it’s not too difficult)! For the beginning collector, CLICK HERE.
• Books without dust jacket (when originally issued with one) are worth only a fraction of the book with dust jacket.
• Paperback versions have little collectibility or value.

Level 1: Up to $20

1. Caldecott Medal books, 2000 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1990 to present.
3. Geisel Medal books, 2006 & 2007.
4. Modern Caldecott award winning illustrators, such as books by Tony Diterlizzi, Kevin Henkes, Kadir Nelson, Chris Raschka, Eric Rohmann, David Small, and Mo Willems.
5. Contemporary illustrators, 1990 to present, such as books by Felicia Bond, Kay Chorao, Steven Kellogg, Michael Hague, Tomie de Paola, Mercer Mayer, and Cindy Szekeres.
6. Contemporary pop culture franchise books, including Little Critter, Arthur, Berenstain Bear, Magic School Bus, Olivia, and Toot & Puddle books.

A common strategy is to collect books which stay in print for decades, perhaps never going out of print ('never' is a long time, so please consider it in context). The idea is the longer the book is in print, the more children enjoy and read it, thereby increasing the interest in the first edition copy. Eventually. If only those five year olds would hurry up and become forty. 

Level 2: Up to $50

1. Caldecott Medal books, 1995 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1980 to present.
3. Harper & Row, ’I Can Read’ series books, 1970 to present.
4. Illustrators, 1970 to present, such as books by Leo & Diane Dillon, Richard Egielski, Stephen Gammell, Trina Schart Hyman, Leo Lionni, Jerry Pinkney, Richard Scarry, Peter Spier, Tomi Ungerer, David Wiesner, Ed Young, and Paul Zelinsky.

Level 3: Up to $100

1. Caldecott Medal books, 1990 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1970 to present.
3. Beginner Books, 1960 to present.
4. Harper & Row, ‘I Can Read’ series books, 1957 to present, especially the early Syd Hoff books, and the affordable Maurice Sendak Little Bear books.
5. Illustrators, 1960 to present, including Raymond Briggs, Marcia Brown, Ed Emberley, the Haders, Nonny Hogrogian, Hilary Knight (non-Eloise), Leo Lionni, the Petershams, Shel Silverstein, William Steig, Leonard Weisgard, and Taro Yashima.

Level 4: Up to $200

1. Selected Dr. Seuss books - from eBay only - including The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, The Sleep Book, Sollew Sollew, Hop On Pop, Lorax, One Fish/Two Fish, and Yertle the Turtle. First editions can be found on eBay, however are considerably more expensive from other bookselling sites.
2. Caldecott Medal books, 1980 to present.
3. Caldecott Honor books, 1960 to present.
4. Classic illustrators, 1950 to present, including Roger Duvoisin, Ingri & d’Aulaire, Feodor Rojankovsky, Leo Politi, Louis Slobodkin, Gustaf Tenggren, and Kurt Wiese.
5. Selected franchise books, including Happy Lion, Petunia, Little Golden Books (with dust jackets!),  

Level 5: Up to $500

1. Caldecott Medal books, 1950 to present.
2. Caldecott Honor books, 1938 to present (except Madeline, which would be much more expensive).
3. Key franchise books, including Angus, Babar, Curious George, Eloise, Madeline, Harold/Purple Crayon, and the Smalls books (Lenski).
4. Foundation illustrators, 1930 to present, including Marjorie Flack, Wanda Gag, Robert Lawson, Lois Lenski, Robert McCloskey, and Tasha Tudor.
5. Selected Maurice Sendaks books.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We might have included Chris Van Allsburg's Polar Express to the list. 

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Children’s book collectors and many booksellers know of the collectibility of Caldecott and Newbery award winning books. Children’s early readers, or ‘Learn To Read’ books are also likely to develop as a collectible sector over the coming years.

For decades, early readers were prescribed by school administration, often in the form of the ‘Dick and Jane’ (which already has a large collector base). The advent of the Cat in the Hat and other Beginner Books, along with Little Bear and other I Can Read books, led to the demise of the prescribed reader. In 1961, Horn Book Magazine (Feb. 1961, pg 47-48) wrote:

EASY-TO-READ BOOKS

The idea behind the easy-to-read books which have flooded our libraries and bookstores since 1957 when Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat and Else Minarik’s Little Bear (illustrated by Maurice Sendak) broke the dam seems to have been that children who have just learned to read want books which they can read but which look and sound like “real” books, not primers.

A good idea, the soundness of which is demonstrated by the children’s enthusiastic response. But let us not take advantage of such real enthusiasm. Let us give them a “real” book, not a spurious facsimile.

Looking over these quantities of series, one gets the impression that too frequently a few words are counted out from some word list, thrown together in large print, drowned in glaring colors, sewn into glossy covers, and sent to market. The number of words used is displayed conspicuously on the front, as if the publishers were competing for the lowest, as in a price war.

Already there are far too many titles for a single reader to read during the short period before they are ready for more substantial fare. There is thus no need for any library to carry all of them; better to buy many copies of the few titles worth reading.

Little Bear proved that it is possible for an easy-to-read to have beauty, charm, and integrity. Cat in the Hat show that real humor is also possible. Children deserve the best in books in this department just as much as in the others, and since the best is available if one looks hard enough, why put up with less?

Forty five years later, in 2006, the American Library Association created an award for beginning readers, aptly called,

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, established in 2004, is given annually (beginning in 2006) to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished contribution to the body of American children’s literature known as beginning reader books published in the United States during the preceding year. The award is to recognize the author(s) and illustrator(s) of a beginning reader book who demonstrate great creativity and imagination in his/her/their literary and artistic achievements to engage children in reading.

The award is named for the world-renowned children’s author, Theodor Geisel. "A person’s a person no matter how small," Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. "Children want the same things we want: to laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted." Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss charmed his way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, he helped them to read.

We believe over time, the Geisel Award will increase the collectibility of early readers, especially first editions of learn-to-read foundation books from the early 1960's, and also books that are staples within elementary school libraries. Since the selection group for the Geisel Award is the American Library Association, its nearly a guarantee the honored books will become staples within libraries--a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Currently first edition early readers, on a whole, are relatively inexpensive to collect.

2007 Medal Winner (from the ALA):

Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways by Laura McGee Kvasnosky (Candlewick)

The popular fox sisters return in this book with three adventures precipitated by their need to avoid the dreaded cucumber sandwiches dad is preparing. Strong character development and a superb book design that showcases framed gouache paintings combine to encourage young readers to reach the trio of hilarious outcomes.

“Our Geisel winner connects with readers by featuring a dilemma many young children understand,” said Geisel Committee Chair Ginny Moore Kruse. “Zelda and Ivy’s backyard escapades spark the imagination and make the reader want more.”

Click here for 2007 Honor Award Winners.

The 2006 Geisel Medal was Henry and Mudge and the Great Grandpas, written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Suçie Stevenson (Simon & Schuster). From Kirkus Reviews

In the tenth book of their adventures, Henry realizes that Mudge has never been taught such commands as “sit” and “heel.” With the help of a patient teacher, home practice, and innumerable “liver treats,” the huge dog does learn to “stay,” at least long enough to pass his training course--though Mudge's forte is clearly being lovable rather than obedient. […] a fine story for beginners, with appealing characters, lifelike situations, and charmingly comical illustrations.

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There’s an amusing article at Fuse#8, "Fat Insufferable Cats", about the OCLC list we posted a couple of days ago. The article laments the inclusion of the eh, how shall we say, ‘less literary’ children’s books on the OCLC Top 1000, beginning with #15, Garfield. Indeed, a fat insufferable cat.

Recall that the OCLC list “contains the Top 1000 intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the ‘purchase vote’ of libraries around the globe.” (Likely the first time a Garfield book has been labeled an “intellectual work”, even in this back-handed manner.)

It is satisfying to see twenty-four Newbery Medal books on the OCLC Top 1000, although one wonders why more libraries are not stocking the other sixty award winning books. As one might expect, Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time is the foremost Newbery in the OCLC Top 1000, coming in 257^th overall, with nearly 10,000 libraries worldwide carrying the book.

It is a bit surprising that Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is the 2nd Newbery on the list (and 373^rd overall). Thunder/Cry hasn’t received the pop culture notoriety of a number of other award winning books, and yet comes in ‘ahead’ of such stalwarts as Holes, Caddie Woodlawn, Sounder, and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. 

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The "Top 1000" titles most widely held by Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) member libraries—the intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the "purchase vote" of libraries around the globe. The OCLC web site presents the top books most widely held by libraries, with thematic sublists, sample cover art, "Find in a Library" links, comparisons to other lists, and download files. A key to entries is available.

The list is derived from WorldCat, a library catalog of items held by 53,000 libraries in 96 countries.

OCLC Top 1000

Fun facts about the updated OCLC Top 1000

Because it reflects the decisions of many libraries over many years, the list would not be expected to change much from one year to the next. And, in fact, this year's list is substantially the same as last year's. What changes there are in individual rankings are due as much to continuing refinements in the list-building methodology as to changes in the system-wide collection actually held by libraries.

How do libraries choose?

Deciding what items to add to a library collection is part of what librarians call collection development. Libraries have written collection-development policies, which are based on the mission and goals of the library, the needs and requests of the community it serves, and the level of resources the library has to work with. Libraries also rely heavily on book reviews. A decision to purchase a single item is rarely made in isolation.

What does this list say about libraries?

Libraries are rich, deep, resources for preserving cultural heritage and indispensable resources for the communities they serve. By and large the list reflects true classics and canonical works of western culture. The list also shows the extent that libraries strive to meet the needs of their readers, by offering books in high demand any given year. The list contains classic works such as the Bible, utilitarian works such as the U.S. Census and also popular works such as Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation.

How the list was made:

WorldCat + FRBR + manual intervention + holdings + sorting

In a nutshell: we made a master list of all the items held by libraries around the globe. We tweaked it to bring together different printings and editions and translations, and then we counted the number of libraries that own each title. We ranked the titles in descending order by the number of items held by libraries. Then we provided some additional categories to create sublists of fiction, drama, children's works, and so forth.

Top Children's Books Held By Libraries 

The following is the list of children's books found in the OCLC Top 1000: 

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As collectibles, first edition children’s picturebooks are under appreciated by the general population, in part due to the familiarity of the books—“I used to read that when I was a child!”—which propagates the notion the books are common collectibles. The books are common, the first editions are not.

Still, the market prices of first edition picturebooks remain modest. Because of this, the hobby is reasonably inexpensive to practice. The price of ‘buyer’s remorse’ is not too costly—the consolation is owning a nicely illustrated first edition picturebook. Another positive aspect to this ‘general under appreciation’, is inexpensive first edition picturebooks can still be found, idled, on bookseller’s shelves across the country.

The collectible picturebook market is very demand oriented--value and collectibility of a book is determined foremost by the number of people exposed to the book, and the deep interest of a portion who will want to own a first edition copy. Vast numbers of adults were exposed to picturebooks as children; in the U.S., we have a collective conscious around books that helped us learn how to read.

Because of this, the hobby of collecting children’s picturebooks is highly accessible, and does not require years of personal research to come to an understanding of a book’s beauty, collectibility, and value. Most of us have already undertaken years and years of personal research, during our elementary school years and younger. We learned to read through picturebooks, which transformed us, to then read to learn.

Rarity, in and of itself, will not drive value. Popularity and demand will.

The value of any collectible item is an economic balance between the supply and demand within the hobby. The supply depends upon the original production quantity, less the number damaged or discarded over time.

The demand for the collectible is impacted by different criteria, factors particular to the item in question. Since the supply side of any collectible is fixed after its production, then the heaviest impact on the appreciation of a collectible over time are the factors which impact demand.

Every collecting hobby has some key factors that determine an item’s collectibility and value. For example, with comic books, a hobby with a highly established valuation method, value is determined by the comic’s title, the characters involved, the writer & artist, the story, whether it introduces new characters, the publisher, the age or era, the supply, and the condition of the book. All of these items affect the collecting population’s demand for the particular issue, which in turn, determines the comic book’s price within the market.

Similar factors could be enumerated for coins, stamps, baseball cards, Disneyana, and Pez dispensers. So, similar to any collecting hobby, illustrated children’s picturebooks have several key factors that determine their collectibility and value.

Prerequisites To Collectibility

Before discussing the key factors to collectible children’s picturebooks, we should pause to consider the prerequisites for a book to have any collectibility or value. In the case of illustrated children’s picturebooks, the prerequisites are no different then of book collecting in general: a book’s identification as a true first edition and the condition of the book.

As you become more and more involved in book collecting, it will become vital that you are able to assess and identify contemporary first editions from most major publishing houses. To get started in this endeavor, refer to the web page Identifying First Editions for information on identifying first editions from some popular children’s book publishers.

Similarly, as your interest in the hobby grows, it is important that you understand how to assess or grade a book’s condition. Book Grading provides information about generally accepted book condition guidelines.

One could argue that the two prerequisites, first edition identification and a book’s condition, should be included as the most important key factors affecting a book’s collectibility and value. If this argument sets you at ease, then fine, for it matters not how one categorizes the influences on a book’s collectibility and value, just so we agree upon some common understanding of the influences.

Six Key Factors

It may come as a surprise to some, but the key factors to a picturebook’s collectibility and value are not manifestly created. Similar to other collecting hobbies, the factors evolve over time. With regard to collecting first edition picturebooks, to our knowledge, the factors affecting value have not yet been documented within the hobby.

The factors that we put forth are a starting point for dialogue within the picturebook collecting hobby, which will create some controversy and discourse. Over time, this collaborative tension will lead to evaluation and evolution of the factors generally accepted to affect a book’s value and collectibility. Eventually these factors will become solidified within the hobby.

With that said, it is with a degree of uncertainty that we offer these six key factors in determining the collectibility and value of a first edition children’s picturebook. After all, it is difficult to determine exactly why anybody collects anything, so to itemize six key factors to collecting children’s picturebooks would seem a frivolous endeavor. Also, one would be quite naïve to think that these six are the only factors which contribute to a picturebook’s value.

Still, our insanity prevails—the six key factors are, in no particular order, and with the spirit of stirring up some controversy:

• Aesthetic Quality of the Illustrations and the Story
• Eminence of the Illustrator
• Book’s Illustration Awards
• Pop Culture
• Copies Sold / High Printings
• Franchise Books

The six factors are intimately connected, so it is difficult to individually describe one without intermingling the description with the other factors. One factor will invariably impact other factors. Not one to retreat from a challenge, we will try nonetheless.

The astute collector can leverage this period of development by focusing on books not yet held in high regard within the collectible picturebook market. Develop your list of factors currently under weighted in the market, and target those books (with personal aesthetic appeal, of course).

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Links, Links, and more Links

Links, links, and more links.

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John Hersey & Theodor Geisel

[Following excerpt from Chap. 1, Childrens Picturebook Price Guide] 

Prior to the publication of his first children’s book in 1937, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street (Random House, 1937)), Theodor Seuss Geisel was a prominent and successful humorist illustrator for such magazines as Judge and Life. By the time of The Cat In The Hat’s publication, Dr. Seuss was a very successful children’s book illustrator, having published twelve children’s books, three of which had won Caldecott Honor awards. Actually, prior to the publication of The Cat In The Hat, one could easily say that Dr. Seuss had already had two successful illustration careers, one as a humorist and one as a picturebook creator.

Mr. Geisel created The Cat In The Hat in reaction to a Life Magazine article by John Hersey, published in the May 24, 1954 issue, titled “Why Do Students Bog Down On First R? A LOCAL COMMITTEE SHEDS LIGHT ON A NATIONAL PROBLEM: READING.” In the article, Hersey was critical of the then current state of school primers,

“In the classroom boys and girls are confronted with books that have insipid illustrations depicting the slicked-up lives of other children. [Existing primers] feature abnormally courteous, unnaturally clean boys and girls.” “In bookstores, anyone can buy brighter, livelier books featuring strange and wonderful animals and children who behave naturally, i.e., sometimes misbehave. Given incentive from school boards, publishers could do as well with primers.”

Hersey’s arguments were enumerated in some ten pages of Life Magazine, which was the leading periodical of its time. After detailing many issues contributing to the dilemma with student’s reading, toward the end of the article, Hersey redundantly asked:

“Why should [school primers] not have pictures that widen rather than narrow the associative richness the children give to the words they illustrate—drawings like those of the wonderfully imaginative geniuses among children’s illustrators, Tenniel, Howard Pyle, “Dr. Seuss,” Walt Disney?”

Geisel responded to this “challenge” by rigidly limiting himself to a small set of words from an elementary school vocabulary list, then crafted a story based upon two randomly selected words—cat and hat. The results of this personal challenge are nothing short of amazing!

Geisel Meets Dick and Jane 

[The following excerpt, a 'first hand' report on Geisel’s arduous development of The Cat in the Hat, is reprinted from the July 6, 1957 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, “The Wonderful World of Dr. Seuss”, by Robert Cahn.]

Children, of course, understand and accept Geisel’s pictures, a fact which led to an unusual assignment two years ago during the height of the controversy over why Johnny can’t read.  Text book publishers and some educators and parents had realized that one trouble was that Johnny’s reader wasn’t readable. Most creators of children’s primers, though experts in form, failed miserably as storytellers.  What was required, the publishers knew, was the kind of story that would lead a child from page to page with suspense and delight. Yet most writers were unwilling to accept the severe vocabulary limitations required for a first grade reader.

Into the impasse stepped Geisel.  He offered his services to one of the nation’s leading textbook publishers and was assigned to prepare a book that six-year olds could read themselves.  Unfortunately, the situation soon got out of hand.

“All I needed, I figured, was to find a whale of an exciting subject which would make the average six-year old want to read like crazy,” says Geisel.  “None of the old dull stuff:  Dick has a ball. Dick likes the ball. The ball is red, red, red, red.”

His first offer to the publisher was to do a book about scaling the peaks of Everest at sixty degrees below zero.

“Truly exciting,” the publisher agreed.  “However, you can’t use the word ‘scaling,’ you can’t use the word ‘peaks,’ you can’t use the word ‘Everest,’ you can’t use the word ‘sixty’ and you cant’ use the word ‘degrees.’”

Geisel shortly found himself with a list of 348 words, most of them one-syllable words, which the average six-year old could recognize—and not a Yuzz-A-Ma-Tuzz or a Salamagoox among them.  To one who was used to making up new words at will, it was a catastrophe.  And yet the publisher had said, “Create a rollicking carefree story packed with action and tingling with suspense.”

Six months after accepting the assignment, Geisel was still staring at the word list, trying to find some words besides “ball” and “tall” that rhymed.  The list had a “daddy,” but it didn’t have a “caddy.”  It had a “thank,” but it had no “blank,” “frank” or “stank.”  Page after page of scrawls was piled in his den.  He had accumulated stories which moved along in fine style but got nowhere.  One story about a King Cat and a Queen Cat was half finished before he realized that the word “queen” was not on the list.

One night, when he was almost ready to give up, there emerged from a jumble of sketches a raffish cat wearing a battered stovepipe hat. Geisel checked his list—both hat and cat were on it.  Gradually he worked himself out of one literary dead end after another until he had completed his children’s reader.

The Cat in the Hat was published last spring by Houghton Mifflin as a supplementary school text for first graders, and in a popular edition by Random House.  It already has been greeted enthusiastically by parents and educators.  The story line concerns fanciful adventures occurring when a vagrant cat drops in to play with two small children while their mother is out.  The verse, composed from only 200 different basic words, has a delightful meter and builds repetitions through devices such as the cat adding object after object to a juggling act.  And the drawings, of course, are pure Seuss.

Although the principal character of The Cat in the Hat turns out to be all right in the end, he is not quite in keeping with most Seuss animals, which are usually gentle, loving and true blue. “Ted’s animals are the sort you’d like to take home to meet the family,” says [Geisel’s wife] Helen. “They have their own world and their own problems and the seem very logical to me.”

[end Saturday Evening Post excerpt]

Cat in the Hat and Beginner Books

[Following excerpt from Chap. 1, Childrens Picturebook Price Guide]

Successful before the publication of the The Cat In The Hat, after it’s publication, Dr. Seuss became an ‘overnight’ national phenomenon. After the publication of The Cat In The Hat, numerous feature articles were published in Life, Look and other prominent periodicals. The book’s characters, along with other Seuss creations, were extended into toys and other products, occurring long before co-merchandising and line extensions became commonplace for children’s character marketing.

The Cat In The Hat was published by Random House. However because of it’s success, an independent publishing company was formed, called Beginner Books. Geisel was the president and editor. Beginner Books was chartered as a series of books oriented toward various stages of early reading development. The second book in the series was nearly as popular, The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, published in 1958.

Springing from this series of beginning readers were such standards as A Fly Went By (1958), Sam and the Firefly (1958), Green Eggs and Ham (1960), Go, Dog. Go! (1961), Hop On Pop (1963), and Fox in Socks (1965), each a monument in the picturebook industry, and also significant in the historical development of early readers. All are still in print and remain very popular over forty years after their initial publication12.

Creators in the Beginner Book series were such luminaries as Jan & Stan Berenstain, P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Helen Palmer (Mr. Geisel’s wife). The Beginner Books dominated the children’s picturebook market of the 1960’s, and still plays a significant role today within the phases of students’ reading development.

[Click for first edition points, with photographs, for The Cat In The Hat.]

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eBay's recent policy change to hide bidder ID's on auctions over $200 makes it much easier for shill bidders to bid up the price on auctions. The new policy is harmful to buyers and sellers.

The eBay user community must build a ground swell of protest.  The topic is plastered all over the eBay discussion boards, however this is not enough.  In the following article, one has to ask the question, "If eBay's bid monitoring process is so sophisticated, how could they not catch something as sophmoric as an ex-wife's user id being used to prop up the bid price?" Banned for life?  What is the recompense to the buyers who overpaid?

Please forward this article to those who might be interested.

From The Sunday Times

Top trader banned for life over fixed eBay auctions

Shill bidding allows unscrupulous vendors to ramp up the price

ONE of Britain’s top eBay traders has been banned from the auction site for life after a Sunday Times investigation found that an account in the name of his ex-wife had allegedly been used to bid up the price of goods that he was selling.

Computer records show that Eftis Paraskevaides, an antiquities dealer from Cambridgeshire, took bids from his former wife’s eBay account on at least 400 items. The link between seller and bidder had been hidden from customers and eBay officials because the transactions were made in her maiden name.

It follows disclosures by this newspaper last week that the practice of artificially driving up prices — known as shill bidding — is common on eBay. It is against the site’s rules and is illegal under the 2006 Fraud Act.

Paraskevaides and his ex-wife were among six users who were permanently barred from the site after The Sunday Times passed its evidence to eBay. Two others were suspended.

A former gynaecologist, Paraskevaides ran a business selling classical antiquities on eBay often for thousands of pounds a piece. His company’s £1.4m turnover made him a “Titanium PowerSeller” — one of the auction site’s handful of top earners.

Last month he boasted to an undercover reporter that he could call on business associates to bid on his goods for him.

He said: “If I put something really expensive (up for sale) and I was concerned that it was going for nothing, I would phone a friend of mine, even a client of mine who buys from me, and say: For Christ’s sake, I sell you 100 quids’ worth of items a week . . . just put two grand on it, will you?” He claimed that a business of his size and reputation “very rarely” had to bend the rules in this way. However, eBay records show that in the past year an account using the ID “Cathlumb” bid on at least 404 items being sold by BidAncient, Paraskevaides’s company.

This account belongs to Catherine Lumb, aged 51, who separated from Paraskevaides in 2003 after 21 years of marriage. The couple are now divorced.

The transactions between the couple appear on eBay records in the cases where Cathlumb was the winning bidder and gave positive endorsements to the seller. It is believed that no money changed hands in any of the purported sales.

Officials at eBay regard such records as highly suspicious. Shill bidders often end up buying items inadvertently while attempting to bid up another customer. Alternatively, some sellers shill bid to win back their own item to stop it fetching too low a price at the end of an auction.

Last week Lumb, who runs a cafe in Emsworth, Hampshire, indicated that the account was one of two she controlled, but said she had not used it for a year. She later said: “I’ve never used that account to bid on BidAncient items.”

However, it is believed that the bids were placed from a computer which can be electronically traced to the area where she now lives.

Paraskevaides, 50, claimed that he had not been aware that his ex-wife’s account had purchased any items. “I’ve no idea what has happened. It might be that my ex-wife wanted to invest in ancient art. I’ve no idea what my ex-wife does,” he said.

Last week eBay imposed a 12-month ban on two of his other clients who had bid on dozens of his items. An eBay spokesman said: “We are grateful to The Sunday Times for their efforts in identifying these individuals. We have conducted a thorough investigation which, along with evidence given to us by the newspaper, has led to the permanent suspension of several users.”

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every year the American Library Association announces the Caldecott and Newbery Medal winning books at their mid-Winter conference. The event was webcast this morning. Once the winners are announced, we hustle out to purchase a copy or two of the winning books, since they will be tougher to find within a week. The books become instant 'classics' - rarely do Newbery or Caldecott Medal winning books go out of print.

Today, because of the awards, the respective publishers have started the process of making additional printings to serve the market. Barnes & Noble is already marketing the winning books on their home page. Such is the power of the ALA. See today's winners, at 2007 ALA Awards.

In the past couple of years, the Newbery Medal winning book has skyrocketed in value. There are 9 copies of the Single Shard, the 2001 winner, on ABE, each selling for over $500. ABE has 4 copies of Kira-Kira, the 2005 winner, each selling for over $600. ABE has 19 copies of Criss Cross, last year's winner, listed for over $100.

This year, again, the ALA has selected an obscure, under-printed book, The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, as the Newbery winner. This is the second year in a row that Borders did not stock the Newbery Medal book in advance of winning.

As an aside, David Wiesner has now won his third Caldecott Medal, this year winning for Flotsam. Wiesner won in 1992 for Tuesday, and in 2002 for The Three Pigs. He now joins Marcia Brown as the only 3 time winner. Wiesner has also won two Caldecott Honor awards, and yet is still relatively underappreciated within the collectible book market.

Tooting our horn a bit, from our book, the Children’s Picturebook Price Guide: Most Valuable Books – 1990’s

"This list is dominated by the seven Caldecott Medal award books, headed by David Wiesner’s Tuesday. Tuesday is becoming moderately difficult to find, and Wiesner’s regard within the market place has been enhanced by winning a second Caldecott Medal with The Three Pigs, and a second Caldecott Honor for Sector 7. In our opinion, David Wiesner’s wordless books are the best that have been crafted. As an aside, Wiesner also illustrated E.T., The Storybook, published in 1982, which is 97th on the Publisher’s Weekly list of bestselling children’s books."

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 04:05 PM | Permalink

Elaine Krieg Smith publishes a monthly list of the top ten children's books sold on eBay.  See here for her December 2006 list Top Ten Children’s Books Sold on eBay - December 2006

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Added the web page About Us, which is probably more than you want to know. 

Also added a Site Navigation link to assist getting around the website--we are getting it all connected, slowly. 

All the best,
Stan Zielinski 

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The information offered on the website and blog is offered free of charge. If you find the information useful, then kindly link or share the post with a parent, teacher, librarian, bookseller, or collector. Thank You.

Posted by Stan Zielinski at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've been asked several times for our background regarding the legitimacy of the first edition identification points for books posted on this blog. We can't speak from authority, only experience. So, some background info.

In all cases we own the first edition book we are posting. The photographs on the blog are from books we own.

Our collection includes 4,000 first edition children's books, covering the period from around 1914 to 2006. We have never sold a picturebook. Close to 1,000 books were purchased from ABAA members (or from booksellers who choose to leave the ABAA). A prominent number of books were purchased from Aleph-Bet, Jo Ann Reisler, Maggie Page, Peter Glassman (Books of Wonder), Jeryl Metz, and Elaine Woodford.

Our collection focuses on Caldecott Medal and Honor books and their illustrators, Seuss books, along with other contemporary illustrators we enjoy, such as Steven Kellogg, Michael Hague, Leslie Tryon, and Lynn Munsinger. We also love the books from the early 1930's, the years in which the picturebook form was solidifying.

We research our purchases, and when in doubt, validate first edition points from another reputable source prior to purchasing the book. We retain the mailing catalogs and pamphlets from each of the booksellers to use as reference material. We have a fairly extensive collection of the Horn Book Magazine from 1936 through 1970, which is a fantastic reference, especially for original book prices.

We have been in communication for 6 or 7 years with the prominent eBay children's book buyers/sellers, including Cliff Erickson (To & Again Books) and Bruce Howard (Bookbid Books). Cliff is one of the most knowledgeable children's booksellers around--remarkably he was given an acknowledgment for his contribution in both the Santi LGB guide and the Younger/Hirsch Seuss Guide. I am hoping Cliff will document first edition points for Harper's "I Can Read' books, which are extremely under documented in collector circles. I'm pretty sure Bruce has the largest collection of Seuss books in the world (i.e. multiple complete 1st edition sets). I recall when the stickered version of Green Eggs first came up for sale (several years before the Younger/Hirsch guide), and a bunch of us were emailing back and forth the excitement of discovering a new first state of the book. We had similar thoughts with McElligot's Pool, with the discovery of the rear flap triangle with the $2.50 price.

My obsessions - Seuss, Beginner Books, Platt & Munk's "Never Grow Old" series, info related to the picturebook history (original artwork from books, magazine appearances, early merchandising, etc...), and finding undocumented 'states'. As an example, we have 38 copies of the first three states of The Cat In The Hat (there are actually four states within what is commonly known as three first states). Documented the Seuss original stories in Redbook Magazine (I believe the first time they have been collectively documented). We have over 20 copies of the Lois Lenski version of The Little Engine That Could, part of the "Never Grow Old" series; documented 14 states in this issue, published with DJ from 1930-1952, up until the lawsuit with Grosset & Dunlap. Excluding Cat/Hat, we have nearly 200 copies of the first fifty Beginner Books in DJ, to assist in documenting first edition points. Found two states of Millions of Cats with Jersey City imprint, which I believe has not yet been documented. Etc...

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Park City Record's article on the Children's Picturebook Price Guide can be found at the following link:

http://www.parkrecord.com/scene/ci_3906185

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since the early 1990’s, the collective independent book store population has undergone a significant upheaval, through the advent of the large chains, then followed by the emergence of Amazon and the internet. Still, the financially strong have survived and reached a symbiotic balance between themselves, Amazon, and the Barnes and Nobles of the world. The secondary book market has not faired as well.

The secondary market is composed of three primary avenues, being overrun books (i.e. discounted new books), used books, and antiquarian or collectible books. Whereas the primary market for new books has three established outlets for sales, being chain stores, independent book stores, and the internet store, the secondary market is in turmoil as all three threads compete in the same marketplaces. As a result, at this time, the collectible book market is quite unstable.

There is no firmly established marketplace for overrun books, used books, or collectible books on the internet. Instead, each competes for space in the same market places. The three main markets are the specialized internet listing entities, such as ABE, the auction entities, primarily eBay, and the subsidiary services, such as Half.com and Amazon. In the case of all three, there are significant issues to overcome for the collectible bookseller and book buyer.

The crux of the issue is that the prospective buyer for overrun books, used books, and collectible books is a very different consumer, and yet all three consumer groups are searching in the same markets. Because of this, the three market places are orienting more and more toward the largest consumer class. The collectible market, being the smallest of the three, is being shoved aside as the market places adjust and orient toward the overrun and used book markets.

The collectible comic book market and sports card market do not experience this same issue. There is really no significant used comic book or used sports card market; the collectible markets dominate and eBay is the defacto market maker, providing liquidity for the professional seller and the collector.

Where is this leading? I’m not smart enough to figure it out. It is going to be difficult to establish a ‘collectibles only’ book market. The collectible book industry is too fragmented to speak in ten voices, much less one. Something akin to the eBay model is probably preferential, with its low barrier to entry, transparency, and liquidity, and would need some modifications to properly service the collectible book market (longer auction durations, painless reserves, etc…). The problem is that eBay is dominated by the used and overrun seller and buyer.

Does anybody have any viable solutions?

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are striving to establish this book as the definitive guide to collecting children’s picturebooks, with the intention of publishing a new edition annually. If people knew how much first edition picturebooks were worth, then perhaps more people would enter the hobby. This would bring a greater number of collectible books to market, and would also increase liquidity.

The children’s book collector market, which is one of the hottest areas within the general book collecting hobby, currently lacks an authoritative price guide. From the book’s introduction:

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Posted by Stan Zielinski at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)