“Kids and young adults,” said Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company’s Kenny Coble, “are our bravest readers,” citing young people’s willingness to give almost anything a try. Enthusiasm for this season’s children’s and YA hot titles was palpable at the annual PNBA tradeshow, held September 26-28 in Tacoma, Wash. The show’s format, with several group meals featuring a variety of authors, allowed for a strong focus on books for younger readers.
During Friday’s Celebration of Authors lunch and Saturday’s Author’s Breakfast, Portland, Ore.-based author Miriam Forster previewed her new fantasy YA title, Empire of Shadows, a follow-up to her critically praised debut, City of a Thousand Dolls, and said that while she enjoys experiencing PNBA as an author, “being here as a bookseller is much more fun because booksellers are such an amazing, welcoming group of people.” Cat Winters gave audience members a sneak peek at her sophomore effort, The Cure for Dreaming, a historical young adult novel featuring a young woman, “a quiet, bookish girl” in 1900s Portland.
Other noted YA and children’s authors, such as Marie Lu (Legend trilogy) and writer/artist Nikki McClure (May the Stars Drip Down), had a chance to speak as well and attendees received copies of their latest work. McClure played a sample of the Jeremy Chatelaine lullaby she illustrates in Stars and told the audience that she “was first presented this idea by my agent in the form of a song and I just loved it.” Lu recounted learning English as a child after moving to the U.S. from China and how her mother instructed her to “write down five English words a day, look them up in the dictionary, and use them in sentences.” This was her first experience as a writer and though she hated it in the beginning (“I didn’t know any of the words!”) she soon came to realize how much she was drawn to writing and learned to love the process.
The Pick of the Lists panel for children’s books, moderated by René Kirkpatrick, co-owner of Bainbridge Island’s Eagle Harbor Book Company, offered fresh suggestions for everything from picture books to adult crossover titles that might appeal to older teens. Seattle’s University Bookstore’s Caitlin Luce Baker started off by championing several books by Mac Barnett—who was also a featured speaker, along with co-author Jory Jon, at Sunday’s Book and Author Breakfast—including Telephone, which Baker noted would be a perfect “read-aloud book for kids of all ages.”
For Wimpy Kid fans who are looking for something a little more advanced, panelists agreed that Barnett and Jon’s The Terrible Two, featuring a prank-loving kid who must start over at a new school, is a good next step. Several of the picks included books in verse form, causing the participants to wonder whether this could be the start of a new trend. Christine Heppermann’s Poisoned Apples is made up of fairy tales retold with a feminist angle in poetry form, while Andrea Davis Pinkney’s The Red Pencil, also in verse, features a girl struggling to get an education in her Sudanese village.
Even before it was voted PNBA’s BuzzBooks champion by the show’s attendees, William Ritter’s Jackaby—described as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who with a plucky young female protagonist—drew rave reviews from the panelists. Jandy Nelson’s new YA novel I’ll Give You the Sun also garnered high praise across the board, and Nelson gave readers a look inside her writing process—the story alternates between the points of view of twins Noah and Jude, told three years apart—that included writing close to three versions of the novel in order to get the perspective and timelines the way she wanted them. During a game of author musical chairs akin to “writer speed dating” on Saturday night, Nelson told her dinner companions that she, unlike Jude, is a terrible stone carver but that she gamely took courses in order to better understand her character.
Billie Bloebaum, formerly of Powell’s Books in Portland, highlighted two titles for girls who have “graduated” from Twilight but want to retain some of the supernatural romance. Maggie Stiefvater’s Sinner, which Bloebaum described as “darker and edgier” than her Shiver trilogy, was one of her suggestions for a good paranormal read, as was Elizabeth May’s The Falconer (“think steam punk Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Scotland with fairies instead of vampires”). Elliott Bay’s Coble presented a selection comprised entirely of books with children of color as the heroes, from Sara Farizan’s Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel, featuring Persian lesbian characters, to Gene Luen’s The Shadow Hero, with an American-born Chinese as the first Asian superhero.
Far from feeling blue about the supposed death of the independent bookstore, booksellers at PNBA were generally upbeat about the state of the industry, noting that there were so many fantastic opportunities at the trade show that there simply wasn’t enough time to sample everything. There was little talk of Amazon or demise of brick-and-mortar bookstores; instead booksellers and publishers were excited by all the new opportunities on the horizon. Next year’s meeting: October 2–4 in Portland, Ore.
