In yet another school year clouded by uncertainty and disruption caused by the pandemic, and as censorship threats to curricula and library materials mount, teachers and librarians face numerous barriers to the way they do their jobs and serve their students. These same concerns affect the work of school and library marketing directors in the children’s publishing arena, who play an important role in supporting educators. We asked directors about the issues they are seeing in their day-to-day operations and how they are collaborating with educators to chart a path forward.
Most of the school and library marketing professionals we spoke with zeroed in on two issues as their most pressing problems of late: the lack of in-person interaction on all levels, and censorship. Additionally, they pointed to supply chain problems and digital fatigue as being top of mind.
“The missing live-and-in-person piece has been a difficult game changer,” says Deborah Sloan, whose firm handles marketing and promotion for, among other publishers, the MineditionUS and Hippo Park imprints at Astra Publishing. But as she and others in the industry pivoted to digital solutions, they also observed an upside to their new practices. “Some authors and illustrators have benefited from the no-travel situation,” Sloan explains. “Virtual events have given opportunities to talent from around the world.”
In addition, Sloan notes that collection development teams have been able to meet and exchange ideas via Zoom without expensive and time-consuming travel. Webinar attendance has also been up for her clients, and she credits “the ability to share titles with hundreds and thousands of librarians so easily with title discovery.”
Looking ahead, however, Sloan joins her colleagues in being eager to embrace many pre-pandemic routines. “My crystal ball shows packed conferences,” she says. “We miss our library and school friends, we value their input, and can’t wait to host preview events and more.”
Mary Van Akin, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group’s director of school and library marketing, says her department is navigating how to safely return to in-person events. “We are so eager to reconvene with the teachers, librarians, and educators that we have spent almost two years meeting and collaborating with remotely,” she notes. “But doing so will take careful planning. We’ve found there is no one-size-fits-all solution and that each conference must be reviewed individually.”
And, as is the case for most directors we spoke with, moving forward will not mean going back to what was formerly business as usual. “I think the future holds a hybrid of in-person and virtual events and that we’ll be able to optimize both experiences,” Van Akin says. “Virtual events have enabled all of us to make events accessible in a really amazing way, so we want to retain that accessibility while also pursuing opportunities to meet and talk about books in person.”
Adrienne Waintraub, executive director of school and library marketing at Random House Children’s Books, offered her insights on how the absence of traditional conference attendance and IRL contact has changed her team’s efforts. “With the pandemic, we pivoted to hosting our previews and other RHCB programming virtually, and participated in virtual conferences like ALA Annual, TLA, NCTE, and others,” she says, echoing colleagues at other houses. “While I would assess these adjustments as successful in terms of giving our authors and illustrators platforms for introducing educators to their work, it is very hard to replicate the real-life connections that are made at these events. There is nothing like talking about a new book or a new author face-to-face! It’s also been harder to develop new relationships with teachers and librarians during this time. Simultaneously, teachers and librarians are dealing with so much in their day-to-day work and life that it doesn’t always feel right to request more of their time, particularly after standard work hours.”
Keeping that in mind, Waintraub says, “we have been producing more and more video content featuring our authors and illustrators that educators can access on their own schedules.”
For Penguin Young Readers, “shifting our focus to virtual events and digital efforts has absolutely helped us reach more people,” says Carmela Iaria, v-p and executive director of school and library marketing. “Virtual shows have blown the literal walls off a traditional conference, which has resulted in increased nationwide accessibility. Virtual school and library visit requests are at an all-time high, which means more kids are connecting with authors and illustrators. We have a more engaged audience on social, and our newsletter readership continues to grow. But at the core of it all is the content. We strive to create and host content that reflects and inspires the educators who work directly with children every day.”
And Michelle Leo, v-p and director of education and library marketing at Simon & Schuster, sounds a positive note about the prospect of soon meeting people at the conference booth. “Our education and library marketing staff are looking forward to the return of in-person conferences like ALA Annual in June, where we may once again talk books with and introduce authors to our librarian friends,” she says. “While we are thrilled by the prospect of in-person gatherings, we also recognize the need for continued virtual storytelling options, so we are pleased to have extended our online readaloud guidelines through June 30.”
Confronting censorship
Stories about challenges to what is being taught and read in U.S. schools have become prominent in the news this school year and are reverberating throughout children’s publishing. “It’s been deeply troubling to witness the ongoing book challenges and introduction of exclusionary legislation in so many states and localities across the nation,” Leo says. “Simon & Schuster stands against censorship in all its forms and supports librarians and educators who work to defend and expand access to books for all. We also support organizations including NCAC, PEN America, and the ALA in their efforts.”
Victoria Stapleton, executive director of school and library marketing at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, says, “One of the large obstacles I see right now is a rise in book challenges in schools and libraries across the country, both in the number of challenges and the emotional energy behind those protests.” This state of affairs, she adds, “has led some to amend their purchasing or promotion of books that young readers need to be able to read. Now more than ever we need literature that meets children where they are and encourages them to travel to new places and be courageous in how they grow up in the world.”
Stapleton is inspired by the librarians, educators, authors, illustrators, and parents “who just keep going through these difficulties. Every time I begin to let circumstances overtake me,” she says. “I am reminded of librarians who are serving their communities with everything that they have and teachers like those in Iowa, fighting in legislatures for the freedom to read and educate truthfully.”
Macmillan has been proactive on the censorship front, according to Van Akin. “Without a doubt, one of the biggest challenges right now is determining how to best support our authors and teacher/librarian partners who are facing censorship in school and classroom libraries,” she says. “Last fall, we began hearing from authors about book bannings with an alarming frequency. We were also reading the same articles the rest of the industry was reading about this ongoing issue.”
These developments spurred Van Akin and her team to ponder “how we can best support our authors and the larger educational community,” she says. “We’ve received a lot of feedback indicating that, when a book is banned, the solution has to directly involve and engage the community for it to be successful, which raised the question of how we could be supportive without overreaching or further complicating a very complex issue.”
One working solution the team came up with is “doing everything we can to facilitate nuanced conversations on a national and local level and create an online resource center of ways to share banned books,” Van Akin adds. “We were impressed with the steps the Texas Library Association was taking to address censorship in Texas, so we approached them about hosting a roundtable discussion featuring voices addressing every angle of this topic.”
The result, Van Akin says, was the Freedom to Read Roundtable, a virtual event held on February 24 featuring a panel of “Texas voices,” including a librarian, parent, legislator, and two high school students. “George M. Johnson, author of All Boys Aren’t Blue, which has been banned in 15 states and counting, also joined the conversation to weigh in from the author’s perspective.” She expressed appreciation for “TLA’s expertise, as well as Booklist’s support as a platform partner,” in bringing the program to life.
Van Akin says her team’s goal coming out of this event is “to make it as easy as possible for attendees to replicate this on a local level.” She notes that Macmillan will be distributing a “how to host your own Freedom to Read Roundtable” guide alongside other resources from the TLA and the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom. Down the line, “we plan on featuring these resources through the year at virtual and in-person events,” she adds.
At Lerner Publishing Group, school and library marketing director Lois Wallentine says, “we are closely watching movements popping up across the country to challenge books and censor the topics kids are learning about in schools—particularly attempts to remove books about LGBTQ+ people and people of the global majority from schools and libraries.” She names several action points in terms of meeting the difficulties of acts of censorship. Lerner offers support for educators and librarians facing book challenges via several blog posts containing tips and resources. Additionally, “we’ve created a list of our books that have been challenged, along with reviews, lists of awards, and curricular alignments that the book supports,” Wallentine says.
The company’s other strategies for combating censorship include a partnership with Cicely Lewis, the Read Woke librarian, to develop Lerner’s nonfiction line of Read Woke Books—titles that Wallentine says “deliver much-needed information to students to help them understand the truth about history and what has led up to the challenging issues society is facing today.” A teaching guide for the Read Woke Books program that helps educators prepare for talking about race and racism is also available, and was created by Sonja Cherry-Paul, educator and author who adapted Stamped (for Kids) from the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi.
While many library marketing directors see censorship and the lack of in-person interaction as the most pressing issues of the day, they are observing other complications—and working around them—as well. “Due to supply chain issues and shipping delays, it has been difficult in some cases to send books to reviewers and award committees on an ideal timeline,” Waintraub says. “These are important groups who are working on deadlines and who are integral in helping spread the word about new books.” She notes the upside of being caught in these realities, though. “In the face of challenges related to physical materials, we have been using digital copies more than ever before and have observed an increased level of comfort with the format.”
Though the shift to digital and virtual solutions necessitated by the pandemic has enabled marketing directors, educators, and librarians to continue their work, it has wrought issues of its own. “Another challenge we all face is digital fatigue: how to keep up communication with educators and librarians who are bombarded with digital messaging—an endless stream of emails, e-newsletters, website ads, webinars, and virtual shows and events,” Wallentine says. “Kids are tired, too; remote and hybrid learning hasn’t been easy for them. Teachers and librarians are challenged with supporting their needs, and we want to do what we can to help.”
Among the tactics for tackling this problem, Wallentine cites Lerner programs like Nonfiction November and Fiction February, which provided participants free access to videos of authors, librarians, or professional voice actors reading books. Makerspace May, offering free activities from the Lerner Maker Lab database, is next on the docket. Lerner’s Audisee eBooks with Audio and Audiobook programs “have been growing rapidly,” Wallentine says, noting that they have been effective for “students who are just learning to read and kids who need extra support in developing their fluency.”
What lies ahead?
Though the past two years have been rough for everyone, all the directors we spoke with expressed optimism and confidence about what comes next. “I have complete trust that we share the same goals as our partners in education,” Van Akin says. “We are united in our commitment to providing a reading selection for young readers with as much diversity of experience as possible. We will continue to actively support the freedom to read by facilitating and participating in conversations on the topic, ensuring discoverability of books and supporting individual authors facing censorship.”
Iaria at Penguin shares a similar take. “As always, I think our challenges reflect the challenges of teachers and librarians,” she says. “In addition to their working through a global pandemic, their expertise continues to be questioned when it comes to book selection and they are constantly being asked to do more with less. I think the best and the most we as publishers can do right now is listen to what they need and provide solutions and support. We know that representation in literature is vital, that books that promote wellness and well-being among children are of growing importance, and that tools such as book rationales and robust discussion guides are helpful. But what else can we be doing to support the inclusion of our books in public, school, and classroom libraries?”
Iaria stresses that there is “always a hopeful way forward when you’re working with teachers and librarians,” adding, “They may be tired, but they are also tirelessly committed to creating readers. Our job is to make that job a little easier.”
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