Endless optimism and encouragement...
Plus: Thankful for Kid Lit, Snow Ice Cream, Chaely's Thanksgiving outfit, and more...
I’m teaching a Writing Youth Literature class at the University of Pittsburgh this semester and have a bunch of students who are getting pretty serious about becoming children’s book authors, which has been such a wonderful experience—but the same question keeps coming up during my office hours, and it’s one that I really struggle with: “Do people care less about children’s literature, compared to books for adults?”
Of course, I want to say no!
But even in the book industry, where everyone likes to think of themselves as pretty open-minded, it’s hard to ignore that there’s a bias about children’s literature that’s hard-baked into the way we talk about, publish, and market books.
Once you start looking for it, you’ll see it everywhere.
Children’s literature is a multi-billion dollar industry—and that’s just in the US!—but for some reason the New York Times Bestseller list only has 10 spots for Middle Grade and YA books compared to 15 spots each for adult categories.
The National Book Award gives separate awards for Fiction / Non-Fiction / Poetry in the adult categories… but only has one catchall award for “Youth Literature” (hey, we have all those categories in kid lit, too!).
Alfred Nobel wanted the Nobel Prize for Literature to be given to authors who “produced the most outstanding work in an idealist direction”—which sounds an awful lot like the definition of a children’s book author to me, but for some reason Ladbrokes isn’t taking any bets on Judy Blume to win the big one.
So even though my default setting is always “endless optimism and encouragement,” I’ve found myself kind of wincing and feeling honor-bound to admit:
Advances for kid lit are usually less than for adult books (they just are); kid’s and especially Middle Grade sections are usually smaller, even at the best bookstores, and individual titles are less frequently restocked; Barnes & Noble is significantly cutting their Middle Grade offerings. There are fewer marketing and publicity opportunities in children’s literature, fewer grants and fellowships.
Those are just some uncomfortable facts of the industry.
I only really feel comfortable saying them out loud because my pre-writing publishing career was on the adult side of things where I marketed a lot of kind of fancy adult literary fiction, so I have over a decade of budgets and publicity campaigns in my head for comparison (which makes the difference kind of hard to ignore).
But there’s a flipside to those facts.
Which is that, whenever you ask an adult to list three books that shaped them as a person, chances are that two or even three of them will be books they read when they were ten. In terms of social impact, children’s literature is number one… and there’s no denying that kid’s books are what that make people want to be writers and readers in the first place!
In an ideal world, I’d be able to tell students that people care more about kid lit!
But the more I’ve thought about it—and the more I’ve talked with other children’s book authors (and with teachers and librarians who have to fight for the most basic classroom budgets)—I’ve realized that we aren’t ever writing in an ideal world, and that the question isn’t “do people care less about children’s literature compared to books for adults,” it’s “do people care less about children compared to adults?”
Which is a trickier question to tackle.
What I can tell my students—when they’re wondering if people are going to think less of them for writing children’s books—is that writing for kids is such an enormous privilege. And that one day, if we keep writing and sharing books that are full of empathy and heart, the world is going to catch up.
If you’re in the Pittsburgh area on December 3rd, I’ll be signing books (joined by a bunch of amazing kid lit authors) at Kate’s Book Bash! If you have a young reader in your life, this is going to be such an excellent one-stop shop holiday gifts.
Huge thanks to all the librarians out there recommending SNOW STRUCK this holiday season (& for the STORM BLOWN recs, too— it’s still hurricane season for the next week and change!). Word of mouth recommendations are everything, so I’m giving genuine thanks to all the librarians and teachers and booksellers who are out there putting these books into readers’ hands this year. Thank you!
It’s getting to be Snow Struck Weather™️ in Western PA, so Rachel’s been stocking up on winter wear for our little four-legged friend. Chaely doesn’t technically need it—check out this video of her running in the snow!—but I’m surprised and delighted to report that she’s obsessed with sweaters and never wants to take them off.
Exhibit A: The Thanksgiving Outfit
One of the coolest parts about teaching a kid lit class is that I can ask some of my favorite people to visit. Jeff Garvin has written two of my favorite YA novels and he brought his entire self to class for an hour and half last week and it's no exaggeration when I say it was probably life changing. If you haven't already picked up a copy of Symptoms of Being Human or The Lightness of Hands: do yourself a favor.
And if you ever have a chance to talk with Jeff about books, writing, and living creatively - do it! He also has a podcast, Hero’s Journey, that you can check out for a taste. Huge thanks to Jeff for visiting the class and lighting some creative fires.
Looking for presents this holiday season? Courage HQ has got ya covered!
I don’t endorse or condone eating snow (that’s the caveat on every single recipe I found for this!) but if you’ve ever been curious about snow ice cream, I made this video last year and—now that the snow is starting to fall—this feels like a good time to share it again :)
I hope you’re staying warm!
Your friend,
P.S. If you’ve read this far and you liked Snow Struck… but haven’t left it a rating on Amazon or Goodreads yet, please consider giving it a little love. Most readers I talk with don’t leave reviews anymore, but they really do help get my books in front of more people in online book stores!