With its family roots and free-spirited, eclectic list, Brooklyn-based Enchanted Lion Books is the quintessential indie children’s publisher—and is celebrating an anniversary this year. The company was launched in 2003 by the Bedrick clan: patriarch Peter, who had served as publisher of Schocken Books before starting Peter Bedrick Books in 1983 with his wife, Muriel, and daughters Claudia and Abigail. The publisher’s name is a riff on the historic Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Mass., where the family summered in the 1970s. Currently helmed by Claudia Zoe Bedrick, Enchanted Lion is commemorating 15 years of picture book publishing with a typically wide-reaching roster of releases—and a handful of celebratory events.
“Enchanted Lion’s initial editorial vision was my father’s,” Bedrick said. “His founding mission was to publish illustrated nonfiction, but after he passed away suddenly in 2004, the company began to change focus. Neither I nor my sister [Abigail, though still involved in the company, ceased her hands-on involvement in 2008] were passionate about that genre, and at the time there wasn’t a big demand for children’s nonfiction, so it was clear to us that if we were going to continue, we’d have to find another road forward.”
Bedrick, who had developed a love for—and had amassed a sizable collection of—children’s books from her extensive travels worldwide, found Enchanted Lion’s new direction by building a list originally rooted in English translations of picture books first released in other languages, a publishing track, she said, “I knew I was passionate about—and very familiar with.”
The house has found a comfortable niche with picture books in translation, which in recent years have included three Mildred L. Batchelder Award winners for best work of translation: Mister Orange by Truus Matti, translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson (2014); The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy by Beatrice Alemagna, translated from the French by Bedrick (2016); and Cry, Heart, But Never Break by Glenn Ringtved, translated from the Danish by Robert Moulthrop, and illustrated by Charlotte Pardi (2017).
Enchanted Lion has also garnered three Batchelder Honors, for The Bathing Costume: Or the Worst Vacation of My Life by Charlotte Moundlic, translated from the French by Bedrick, and illustrated by Olivier Tallec and My Father’s Arms Are a Boat by Stein Erik Lunde, translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson, and illustrated by Øyvind Torseter (both 2014); and Nine Open Arms by Benny Lindelauf, translated from the Dutch by John Nieuwenhuizen, and illustrated by Dasha Tolstikova (2106).
Bedrick balances her list of works in translation with a growing number of original titles. One of the first published was 2010’s Emma’s Journey by Claire Frossard, which the publisher acquired quite serendipitously. In 2009, Versailles native Claire Frossard traveled to New York City to visit her photographer uncle, Etienne Frossard. An artist and aspiring children’s book author, she arrived with the beginnings of Emma’s Journey, a story about a sparrow living in Central Park, in her suitcase—and the address of Enchanted Lion’s office in her pocket. “Claire had seen some books we had published, and she left a note on our door about the book she was working on, and we ended up acquiring it,” Bedrick recounted. “She wrote and illustrated the story, and Etienne Frossard contributed photographs to the book. It was one of our first successes with originals.”
Numerous subsequent originals have also done well, Bedrick noted, citing as examples Little Boy Brown by Isobel Harris and André François, the story of a lonely boy in New York City, released to mark the publisher’s 10th birthday in 2013; Enormous Smallness: A Story of E. E. Cummings, Matthew Burgess’s 2015 picture book biography of the poet, featuring illustrations by Kris Di Giacomo; and The Polar Bear, the second installment of Jenni Desmond’s Endangered Animals series, which was a New York Times Best Illustrated book of 2016 (the series’ third volume, The Elephant, is being released this month).
A Time to Celebrate
Enchanted Lion’s anniversary year has brought a robust new crop of original and translated titles to its list, as well as a reissue of Helen Borten’s The Jungle, originally published in 1968, which was inspired by the author’s trip to the Guatemalan rainforest. Other 2018 highlights include Bear and Wolf, Daniel Salmieri’s first book as both author and illustrator, a January release centering on unlikely friends who meet while walking in the snow on a winter’s evening; Vacation, a wordless tale by French artist Blexbolex, in which a girl’s grandfather brings an elephant home to stay, which published in March; and Ohara Hale’s Be Still, Life, a May book that depicts the relationship between stillness and motion.
Fittingly, Enchanted Lion is hosting several celebrations during its anniversary year. At the Bologna Book Fair in March, the publisher welcomed more than 300 guests to a gallery exhibition and book launch for The Forest, a June title featuring elaborate paper engineering incorporating die-cuts, embossing, cutouts, and gatefolds. Italian author Riccardo Bozzi attended the event, as did illustrators Violeta Lópiz, who lives on the Spanish island of Ibiza, and Valerio Vidali, an Italian artist based in Berlin. Enchanted Lion is also producing co-editions of this title with Gallimard in France, Terre di Mezzo Editore in Italy, and Milrazones in Spain.
On October 27, the publisher celebrated Arthur Geisert’s Pumpkin Island, the story of a town overrun by a profusion of pumpkins, and the author-artist’s picture book oeuvre, with a launch party at Geisert’s home and studio in Elkader, Iowa. Meshing fantasy and real life, his new picture book is set on an island in the Turkey River, which the author can see from his kitchen window.
Enchanted Lion wraps up its birthday festivities on December 15 at the New York Public Library with an event spotlighting A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Bedrick and Maria Popova. Eight years in the making, the book compiles 121 letters by a panoply of writers, among them Neil Gaiman, Jerome Bruner, Shonda Rhimes, Ursula K. Le Guin, Yo-Yo Ma, Judy Blume, Lena Dunham, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Jacqueline Woodson. The collection includes art by a stellar lineup of illustrators and graphic artists, including Sean Qualls, Oliver Jeffers, Maira Kalman, Mo Willems, Chris Ware, Shaun Tan, Tomi Ungerer, and Art Spiegelman.
At the event, Bedrick explained, “We will celebrate our continued collaboration and commitment to public libraries everywhere and the culture of reading. This project has been a labor of love and is woven entirely of goodwill, generosity of spirit, and a shared love of books. Everyone involved has donated their time, and all profits will go to the New York Public Library system.”
Looking ahead, Bedrick expects to continue publishing 16–20 books annually, split roughly evenly between originals and works in translation, with occasional reissues of out-of-print picture books.
She expressed gratitude to the sales reps associated with Consortium, Enchanted Lion’s distributor since 2010, who “are passionate book people who have really gotten behind our list and handsell our books to booksellers. We do not have deep pockets and are not a mainstream publisher, and I am so grateful to the community that has come together to encourage us, help spread the word about our books, and embrace our independent spirit and vision. That support has enabled us to continue what we do.”
