The Boy from the Dragon Palace by Margaret Read MacDonald, illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa was published in Fall 2011 to great acclaim. It was named a 2011 NYPL 100 Books for Reading and Sharing and received a starred review from Kirkus: “MacDonald’s lively retelling of this folktale is bound to fascinate kids; after all, who can resist a tale with a snot-nosed boy?”

Brand new this season is How to Be Friends with a Dragon by Valeri Gorbachev. Reviews are just coming in on this book and Kirkus said “A sweet and gentle picture book with friendship, etiquette and a hint of dragon breath….Bedtime approved thanks to its soft palette and reassuring tone, and clever enough to land in many a read-again pile.”

Happy New Year!

(From betterbooktitles.com)

Yesterday Michelle spoke about choosing a book title from the marketing department’s perspective, and about the “running argument” she has with us folks in Editorial.

Hmm, is it really an argument? Well, I will admit to thinking that if Marketing truly had their way, the title for every book would be an artless string of words broadcasting its selling appeal. The Hunger Games would be called ACTION PACKED DYSTOPIAN LOVE TRIANGLE and When I Reach You would be FRIENDS ARE IMPORTANT, PLUS TIME TRAVEL.  It would be like that Better Book Titles site, except worse, because it would be for real! And mostly not funny!

But I also get why it’s often necessary for book titles to be unsubtle. Since Whitman specializes in “issues books” I understand that a well-chosen title can broadcast its usefulness to those in need. If a child is diagnosed with asthma, chances are her mom would rather not scan endless titles looking for artful metaphors for “hard to breathe.”

If anything, I think my place in the running argument titles is somewhere in between Marketing and the author. In fact, I’m often the actual go-between: sometimes I’ll have to explain to Marketing that the author-illustrator I’m working with would rather not have “A Story About the Importance of Oral Hygiene” as a subtitle for her picture book about a wacky tooth fairy; other times I might have to persuade a writer to let us come up with something better than “Tommy the Turtle” or “Reflections.”

(Note: these are all hypothetical examples.)

And I’ve been there right in the middle myself. A few years back I wrote a picture book about a girl with a peanut allergy. I called it “The Princess and the Peanut,” which I thought was totally the cleverest title in the world for a book about peanut allergy. Except that it didn’t have the word “allergy” in it. Somehow it sounded a lot less witty with that “A” word.  But Marketing began to insist, and while it took a while, I finally realized that while “The Princess and the Peanut” was a clever title, The Princess and the Peanut Allergy was a SMART one.

And then we all lived happily ever after, and with continued royalties, too! THE END.

There are two main concerns: 1) will a search engine bring the book to the top? and 2) will the consumer in the store/library know the book is for them by looking at the cover?

Search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc.) and online retailers (name your favorite) respond to searches by looking at the title field first, then the subtitle, then description and key words. Ideally, you would have your topic or key selling point in all of these fields.

For example, if a consumer wants a book about dragons and your title doesn’t have “Dragon” in it, she may never to see your book on the list. This seems even more true if the book is about peanut allergies or diabetes or bullying.

Editorial and I sometimes compromise with a catchy title and what they call a boring subtitle. But the truth is, when you don’t name your book well, it can get lost — especially once it’s in the backlist.

We have a number of issue books that have been in print for a decade or more. I believe they continue to sell well — despite newer competition — because when a parent types in “kids diabetes book” they get Even Little Kids Get Diabetes (published in 1994) in the top few items.

Using the same example, if the title for this book were Johnny and the Sugar Monster, a parent couldn’t tell from the cover (or the spine for that matter) that the book directly address diabetes in young children.

A recent example of the subtitle compromise worked. Out next month is The Wooden Sword: A Jewish Folktale from Afghanistan. Without the subtitle, you need to read the book description to even know it’s a folktale, let alone Jewish and Afghani.

Thanks to the subtitle, in the first month or so when only the data was available — not the book or even the catalog — I received requests for review copies from several major Jewish organizations. They have search engine alerts looking for Jewish children’s books — they don’t want to miss any. We had buzz even before the marketing began — because of a subtitle in the data feed. (Note: Part of the compromise was to have the subtitle on the title page but not the cover.)

Of course, this is not as much an issue with novels, but it’s still true that the title and what’s on the cover communicates information to the consumer. Perhaps we can talk more about that another time.

Editorial will express their opinions tomorrow on the blog. In the meantime, authors — I encourage you to suggest titles that are both fun and informative. Those are always the best!

There’s no crazier time at the gym than the month of January, when everyone’s over their December sugar highs and onto their New Year’s resolutions.

Not that I would know this year, having not made a single visit so far in 2012.

But perhaps I should take a cue from Miss Fox and her class, who, in Miss Fox’s Class Shapes Up, make a group effort to eat healthily and exercise more. Miss Fox notices one student sleeping in class, another whose tummy is a-rumbling, and others who get out of breath way too easily, and decides to help them get a bit more fit.

This book, with its light touch and humorous illustrations, reminds us of key ways we can all be healthier with easy-to-tackle activities. Eating healthy can be a joy when you cook with family, and there are lots of fun ways to exercise, from jumping rope to hula hooping to going on bike rides and swims with your family. The best part is, this stuff works! Miss Fox and her students see firsthand how being healthier and more fit makes life easier and more enjoyable—particularly when the class wins at Field Day!

Miss Fox and her class have even inspired little old me to get up off the cozy couch, cook myself a healthy meal, and then brave the January weather to head to the gym. If Miss Fox’s class can get fit, then I can, too!

Across the country, poets and poetry fans are taking poetry breaks — and this year is a double dose, since it’s also time for the regular Poetry Friday activities.

So here’s a start for you — a poem from our most recent book of poems for kids, A Funeral in the Bathroom and Other School Bathroom Poems by Kalli Dakos, illustrated by Mark Beech.

Visit the Amnesty International website for information about events near you.

If you do attend an event, we’d love for you to post comments and pictures on the Guantanamo Boy Facebook page.

Also, author Anna Perera will be appearing (via Skype) on “Politics Tonight” on CLTV here in Chicago. You can visit the website later in the week for video.

Guantanamo Boy was an amazing book. I would recommend it to all historical fiction fans anywhere because it has the perfect combination of history and fiction. This book opened my eyes in so many ways to the awful things that happened after 9/11 to mostly innocent people.

This book was important for me to read, because it was the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and we learned about it in school. After we learned about it in depth, I went back and read this book again and was horrified that the United Sates Government could do such a thing. I know that they were angry with the Taliban, but not all Muslims are a part of the Taliban or are even dangerous. The Taliban and the al-Quaeda are just extremely small extremist groups within a vast population of generally peaceful people.

After reading about how cruelly the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay were treated, I decided to do some more research. I found out that the Taliban had already tried earlier attempts than 9/11. I found out that the prisoners were put in Guantanamo to find out more about the Taliban and al Quaeda through interrogation. Once they were in Guantanamo the prisoners were starved and treated harshly in the hopes that it would break their will and they would tell about the terrorists.

What the government didn’t know was that few prisoners knew anything about the terrorist activities.

And this fall, on a weekend trip to Iowa, I got to meet Mouse from The Buddy Files! (Also known as “Dori Butler’s dog.”)

The thing about Mouse is that he really does look like a dog who speaks all in caps. He’s HUGE.

Here Mouse is telling my husband, “HELLO. YOU SMELL LIKE PEANUT BUTTER AND SOAP.”

Not only is Mouse a character in The Buddy Files books, he’s also, as a part Golden Retriever and as a therapy dog, the inspiration for Buddy himself. And he loves to play in the yard with Dori and her family.

LOOK AT THAT FACE.

Enjoy!