While most of the almost 1,000 indie booksellers attending Winter Institute 2025 in Denver own or work at general bookstores, and the programming at the annual gathering hosted by the American Booksellers Association is traditionally geared toward those booksellers, there still was attention paid to children’s authors, and the conference concluded with a keynote by a beloved author of children’s books, Brian Selznick.
Stephanie Valdez, co-owner of Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, set the tone for Selznick’s keynote by telling booksellers that Community Bookstore “is lucky to be Brian's local bookstore when he’s on the East Coast—and he has the distinction of being the only author who’s ever sent us a cake.” Valdez lauded Selznick for writing and illustrating books “that push the form of the book forward with his complex interplay of literary and visual narrative,” including The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which won the Caldecott Medal; Wonderstruck; Kaleidoscope; Big Tree; and his latest, Run Away with Me, all published by Scholastic.
After a shout-out to his other local bookstore, Warwick’s in La Jolla, Calif., Selznick emphasized that he felt a connection with the indie booksellers present, because, he said, “I am a bookseller,” having worked at Eeyore’s Books for Children in New York City in the early ’90s. “Even though it’s been a while since I actually worked there,” he said, “I still identify as a bookseller, because in many ways, my job as an author and illustrator is the same as it was at the store. I’m still helping to get the right stories into the right person’s hands, even when, maybe most especially when, they don’t know themselves what the right book might be. We booksellers know the joy of seeing someone’s face light up when we give them a book they connect with, when they discover themselves, recognize themselves in a character, a narrative, or a situation in a story. And we understand the importance of making all books available to everyone.”
Selznick then related how his experiences in the late ’80s and early ’90s shaped him, resulting in him becoming not just an author and illustrator, but the kind of person who would write Run Away with Me, which he described as his “very first gay YA novel.” One strand in the story he told focused on his career as a bookseller, and how it led to his entry into publishing; the other strand was his life “as a young queer man, mostly relatively closeted at the height of the AIDS crisis, but going to ACT UP meetings and protesting in the streets.” Noting that there “was always crossover,” Selznick mentioned the children’s books that were important to him at the time, including AIDS: You Can’t Catch It Holding Hands (Lapis Press, 1987) by Niki de Saint Phalle—“one of the first books about AIDS, meant expressly for very young children,” Selznick said. “The fact of its existence was as valuable to me as the straightforward lessons it held. [Its] whimsical style and reassuring text made everything seem like it was going to be okay. This was deeply moving to me at the time.”
After ruminating on his discovery of the joys of handselling his favorite reads to customers at Eeyore’s, Selznick related that when his supervisor found out that he was a talented artist, he was asked to design store-branded bookmarks and create window displays for events and during the holidays. “I ended up painting directly on the glass on the inside, so it would be safe from the rain,” he recalled, “but this meant I also needed to paint backwards, and not only did it need to look good from outside the store and across the street, but it needed to look good inside the store. This is what book covers have to do as well. They have to look good from far away, across a store, and they have to look good up close, so you want to pick it up and open it and hopefully own it. Every time I come up with a book cover, I think about those windows at Eeyore’s.”
Returning to the present, and to Run Away with Me, Selznick said that he wanted “to try new things, to change and to grow” in writing this novel. “I want to make stories like I haven’t made before. I want to reach readers I haven’t reached before,” he explained, noting that Run Away with Me, set in Rome, was inspired by a nine-month sojourn there, when he explored the city, which sprawls out over layers and layers of buildings built on top of one another.
“[Rome] also felt like a metaphor for our own personal histories, with experiences building one on top of the other, days building up to weeks, then months, then higher still, as the years become decades,” Selznick said. “We’re constantly walking along the surface of our lives, while just below our feet is yesterday and last year, and if we keep climbing down deep enough, our most distant past and all of human history is still affecting us. That’s what writing this talk has done for me. It’s given me the opportunity to dig back into my own past, to put together these strands of my life that often come unbound from one another.”
Concluding his keynote, Selznick blasted the efforts to ban books, declaring that “no amount of censorship will ever erase us,” and adding that he appreciated the sense of community and solidarity he felt at WI2025. “I will try to remember it when I find myself feeling alone and powerless, and I hope that you will too when you go back to your stores, where you are doing important work. We all have a very long road ahead of us, but we will survive. I know you’ve got my back and I’ve got yours. Lifting all those boxes has made us strong, but the stories inside those boxes make us even stronger.”
Prognostications from Booksellers
Selznick joined more than 30 children’s and YA authors at the show, including a dozen middle grade creators. In the galley room and at the receptions, children’s booksellers looking for the next big thing in middle grade reading scooped up Pam Muñoz Ryan’s El Nino (Scholastic Press), Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft’s J vs. K (Little, Brown), and Indies Introduce debuts including Jess Callans’s Ollie in Between (Feiwel and Friends) and Gloria L. Huang’s Kaya of the Ocean (Holiday House), and the category was under scrutiny during WI2025 education sessions.
At a talk on “Readers’ Choices: Analyzing and Adapting to Consumer Trends,” Brenna Connor, book industry analyst at Circana, declared that “middle readers and teen readers are underperforming segments,” but saw potential in nonfiction, series, and stories about mythical creatures. She thought caregivers would look twice at kids’ books about digital habits—“regardless of whether kids are interested in reading them or not”—because readers are thinking critically about devices.
Connor noted that data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows a decline in children’s reading scores since 2019, but she proclaimed optimism. “I am not giving up on the kids’ market,” she said, predicting upticks in “summer bridge” reading, educational activity books, licensed titles, and religion, and said that holiday-themed books are doing increasingly well compared to this time last year.
In another session, “Engaging the In-Between: Combatting the Middle-Grade Reading Crisis,” four panelists assessed the scene and reflected on the importance of modeling a love of books. Holly Weinkauf, owner of the Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, Minn., said booksellers should ask, “Do the kids have adults in their lives who are engaged with reading?”
Brein Lopez, general manager of Children’s Book World in Los Angeles, suggested that grown-ups are too set in their ways. “The problem is us,” he said. “We’re entrenched in an idea of what we think middle grade reading is,” rather than noting kids’ enthusiasms. He posits that “one reason why kids reread graphic novels is because they want to talk about it with somebody” and they crave a reading community.
At his store, Lopez boosts discoverability by placing illustrated chapter books in the graphic novel section, next to the Dog Man series. He displays “middle grade fiction every adult should read” and hosts caregiver-and-kid book clubs; he’s noticed adults and children reading Agatha Christie novels together.
Leah Johnson, author and owner of Loudmouth Books in Indianapolis, agreed that all booksellers ought to explore the category. “When I’m in that galley room, there should not be that much middle grade fiction left on the tables,” she scolded the ABA crowd. She sees promise in “remixed classics,” recommending Bethany C. Morrow’s So Many Beginnings (Feiwel and Friends) as an alternative to Little Women, and she borrowed a display idea from Annabelle’s Book Club L.A., a bookstore “curated by an actual young person [Annabelle Chang], and ‘shelved by vibe,’ with words like ‘shocking.’ ”
Johnson noted the chill of censorship, including in her home state of Indiana. “Classrooms are policed,” she said. “Any way you can support teachers is a way to support kids as readers.” Her fellow panelists suggested teachers’ and parents’ nights—in stores and at book fairs—for insight into what families seek for fun and positive representation.
Paul Swydan, owner of the Silver Unicorn Bookstore in Acton, Mass., noted another obsession that brings the generations together: sports. “The Caitlin Clark books are coming,” he said, noting biographies including Who Is Caitlin Clark? from Who HQ (Penguin Workshop). and citing WNBA All-Star and coach Dawn Staley’s memoir for adult readers, Uncommon Favor (Atria/Black Privilege).
“If you don’t have your sports fiction”—such as books by Mike Lupica—“shelved separate from your regular fiction, you are losing out,” Lopez interjected, “and the same goes for historical fiction,” such as Alan Gratz’s Resist (Scholastic Press).
Swydan sees interest in Lerner’s All-Star Smackdown series, which imaginatively pits an older athlete against a contemporary favorite. As a Massachusetts resident, Swydan singled out Kevin Durant vs. Larry Bird: Who Would Win? (Lerner Sports), adding drily, “I can tell you there’s a clear correct answer to that.”
