Charles Nurnberg, cofounder and publisher of Imagine Publishing, and former CEO and publisher of Sterling Publishing, is developing a new children’s imprint at Quarto Publishing Group USA. Moondance Press, slated for launch in fall 2016, expects to publish 20 titles a year. Nurnberg will leave his post at Imagine at the end of May, will transition during BookExpo America, and then officially start work on the imprint in June.
“Moondance Press will publish edutainment-quality books that will entertain and inform children,” says Nurnberg. “Kids will enjoy themselves, but will always be learning—often without knowing that they are.”
The list will feature nonfiction titles, with a focus on science, nature, and discovery, picture books, as well as puzzle and activity books. In addition, the imprint will publish a select number of adult nonfiction books. The new list, which has not yet been finalized, will consist of new titles, most of them published in hardcover.
As head of Sterling, Nurnberg oversaw the company’s children’s publishing operations, but became especially steeped in the children’s market when Sterling acquired Puff, the Magic Dragon, a picture book adaptation of Peter, Paul, and Mary’s famous song.
When he left the B&N imprint and launched Imagine Publishing in 2008, Nurnberg brought Peter Yarrow into the fold, forming the Peter Yarrow Books children’s imprint. Charlesbridge Publishing purchased Imagine in 2009, and Nurnberg stayed on as v-p and publisher.
Moondance will join Quarto’s growing children’s program in the U.S., which began in 2014 with the creation of Walter Foster Jr. It expanded with the addition of the Quarto UK imprints Frances Lincoln Children’s Books and QEB Publishing, now published through Quarto USA.
This article appeared in the May 27, 2015 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.
