Breaking news and in-depth features from SCBWI in your December INSIGHT

December 1, 2018

BookStop Triumphs in 2018

The annual SCBWI BookStop promotion is going strong in its third year. Nearly 800 members have taken the opportunity to create a page for their newly published book and have been rewarded with more exposure to book lovers and buyers than in the previous two years. As of press time, BookStop has seen nearly 70,000 total page views and is on pace to have 48% more total page views than in 2017.

The use of the extensive reach of SCBWI’s social media has helped to get the eyes of book lovers on the pages. Through retweets and shares, the BookStop message has reached close to 750,000 people. The incentives, especially the one-day-only Thursday Crawls, helped drive pageviews. Views also went up on Black Friday, with an increase of 67% over the day before.

CLICK HERE to browse through the SCBWI BookStop gallery, and while you're there, stop and buy a book. BookStop concludes on Friday, December 7.

Books for Readers Brings Library to Children of Sanford, FL

On November 1, the gym of the Westside Community Center in Sanford, Florida was transformed into a library of over 700 books— every one written or illustrated by an SCBWI member. The recipient of the second Books for Readers event of the year was the Literacy Alliance , based in Oviedo, FL, an organization dedicated to increasing literacy in central Florida through a diverse array of educational resources, programs and training opportunities.

50 families browsed through the selection of brightly colored covers, while kids created bookplates to personalize their favorite picks. SCBWI Director of Marketing Tammy Brown was heartened to see a group of children flocking around the nonfiction section, excitedly sorting through science books about bugs and snakes. “It was a smart group of kids,” she said. “I thought it was really nice to see that sort of engagement with hands-on activities like reading, drawing, making bookplates, rather than being glued to a screen.”

Apply for the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award

Submissions are now open for the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, SCBWI’s highest recognition of a poetry collection or anthology for children. Lee Bennett Hopkins is a renowned poet and anthologist of nearly 200 collections and holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s most prolific anthologist of poetry for children. He created the award with SCBWI in 2015 to “produce, promote, and encourage poets to add to this canon of literature.”

This award is given every three years and comes with a $1,000 cash prize. Applicants must submit a poetry collection or anthology that was published in 2016, 2017, or 2018. Verse novels and narrative story-form pictures will not be accepted for this award. The work should be aimed at young readers, and while some of the poems may have been previously published, the majority of the poems should be new.

Lee Bennett Hopkins looks forward to reading your work, and says, “What makes an engaging poetry collection for a child is to turn the page, to find the new, and truly know each poem was written just for you."

CLICK HERE for the full directions on how to submit.

Celebrate the Holidays with December Happy Book Birthdays

Wrap up the year with a wonderful selection of new book releases! Come browse the Happy Book Birthday gallery here for gift ideas for the children and teens in your life.

This month’s winner is Heather Demetrios with her YA anthology Dear Heartbreak . Ten copies of her book will be donated to Reader to Reader, a nonprofit organization that donates books to under-funded school and public libraries. We hope that her book will speak to teens across the country. To learn more about Reader to Reader, click here .

Click HERE for instructions on how to submit for Happy Book Birthday.

Please note that we will not have a Happy Book Birthday celebration in our January edition of Insight. Submissions for books released in January and February must be sent in by January 20. Only books released in January and February will be accepted during this period, but Happy Book Birthday runs every month: if you have an upcoming release, submit your information to bookbirthday@scbwi.org by the 20th of the month before your book’s release to be included in Happy Book Birthday. We look forward to celebrating with you!

Announcing winners of LA18 Sue Alexander Award

Sue Alexander

Patricia Flam of Providence, Rhode Island is the recipient of this year’s Sue Alexander Award, given annually to the manuscript deemed most promising for publication, and selected from manuscripts submitted for critique at the SCBWI Summer Conference. As the winner of the award, Patricia’s manuscript will be sent a select group of agents and editors. In past years, several winners have signed with agents and been published as a result.

Patricia has written Daniel and the Infinite Stuff , a contemporary MG novel with richly crafted characters put in challenging situations. It's a story of ghosts, best friends, and the cosmically complicated ways the past connects to the future. You won't be able to put it down.

Additionally, Melanie Dearman ’s Atlanta/Pacifica was chosen as a runner up. This young adult novel is a queer summer romance about finding complexity and joy you didn’t expect in a place you never thought you’d be.

The Sue Alexander Award, is named in honor of Sue Alexander, a charter member of the SCBWI. Industry professionals (editors and agents) who critique the manuscript determine the finalists. Until her sudden death in July 2008, Sue determined the award winner. Now, a panel of writers select the winner. Only manuscripts submitted for Los Angeles conference critiques by SCBWI members are eligible. There is no prior application process for this award.

PJ Library Chooses Winner of Jewish Stories Award

The winner of the 2019 SCBWI PJ Library Jewish Stories Award is Pamela Moritz , author of If I Lived with Noah, a delightfully fresh take on the story of Noah and the ark, written in lyrical rhyme.

Moritz will receive the $2,500 SCBWI PJ Library Jewish Stories Award prize, along with PJ Library’s Author Incentive Award of $2,000. Moritz also wins free tuition to the SCBWI 20th Annual Winter Conference in New York, where she will be presented with her award.

The SCBWI PJ Library Jewish Stories Award was established to encourage the creation of more high-quality Jewish children’s literature. PJ Library will make every effort to partner with a publisher to have If I Lived with Noah published and to carry the book in the PJ Library program.

The judges for the SCBWI PJ Library Jewish Stories Award for 2019 were: Lesléa Newman, author of over 70 books, including the Sydney Taylor Award-winning Ketzel, The Cat Who Composed ; Bobbie Fishman, owner of The Bear and the Books, a children’s bookstore in Hopewell, NJ; and Naomi Shulman, author and member of the PJ Library Book Selection Committee.

For more information about the SCBWI PJ Library Jewish Stories Award and to learn about other opportunities for children’s book writers, please visit https://pjlibrary.org/books-and-music/how-we-choose-books/write-and-create-with-pj-library .

Illustrator Info

Narrative Art Award Winner Beth Mills

by Sarah Baker

Beth Mills is the winner of this year’s SCBWI Narrative Art Award. She will receive a trip to the SCBWI Winter Conference, with airfare and hotel included, and her winning pieces will be displayed at the Portfolio Showcase. The judges, all members of the Illustrators Committee of the Board of Advisors, picked her fresh rendition of Beowulf out of almost 200 submissions.

Beth, who is also the Assistant Regional Advisor in SCBWI’s North Texas chapter, answered a few questions for us.

CLICK HERE TO READ

Going Graphic: Why graphic novels are the new frontier in middle grade

by Sarah Diamond

As part of our mission to analyze different aspects of the publishing industry, SCBWI Insight brings you an in-depth look at the boom in graphic novels for young readers.

Graphic novels are experiencing a popularity spike in young readers, especially among the middle grade crowd. Brein Lopez, manager of Children’s Book World in Los Angeles, reports that out of the hundreds of graphic novels he has in stock, “they are almost all oriented to middle grade; fourth and fifth graders through eighth grade. That’s the key spot for a lot of these titles.” Legendary cartoonist Will Eisner termed comics and graphic novels as "sequential art", which is "the arrangement of pictures or images and words to narrate a story or dramatize an idea". This medium, which was once primarily focused on adult superheroes and sci-fi romps, has found new stories to tell: the agony of first crushes, summer camp highjinks, and intimate family drama.

CLICK HERE to read full article

Also be sure to read our interview with graphic novelist superstar Raina Telgemeier.

Telgemeier is an Eisner Award-winning cartoonist whose graphic novels for young readers have helped change the face of the publishing industry. Her works, which are published by the Graphix imprint of Scholastic Press, include Smile (2010), Drama (2012), Sisters (2014), and Ghosts (2016).

CLICK HERE to read the interview,

Three Cheers for...David Zeltser!

A short profile of an SCBWI success story

"When I just starting out, I wrote to Bruce Coville for advice. He wrote 'Have you joined SCBWI yet? That’s your best first step.'

I did and he was right. When my first novel came out, Lug: Dawn of the Ice Age , I thanked both Bruce and SCBWI in the acknowledgments, and I’m still grateful to this day."

Lug: Dawn of the Ice Age was published by Carolrhoda Books in 2016, and its sequel, Lug: Blast from the North , was praised by School Library Journal as “a roaring addition” and by Al Gore as “a great combination of humor and powerful insight.”

Zeltser has also published three picture books, and has another two coming out in 2019: Codzilla (HarperCollins) and The Night Library (Random House).

Three Cheers is an Insight feature in which we select one SCBWI member a month who has a phenomenal success story to share. If you have realized a dream through your involvement with SCBWI, please send your story to threecheers@scbwi.org .