HarperCollins Children’s Books has announced the launch of Allida, a new imprint at Clarion Books led by author Linda Sue Park and Anne Hoppe, v-p and editorial director at Clarion. Park is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning A Single Shard and the bestselling A Long Walk to Water, which has sold more than three million copies, among many other acclaimed works for young readers, including picture books, novels, and poetry. Clarion is Park's longtime publisher.
Launching in early 2023, Allida—named for the Korean word that means to inform, announce, or make known—will publish books for children and teens. Created by Korean American type designer Lynne Yun, the Allida logo is inspired by the tradition of Asian seals, sometimes called chop marks, used to authenticate authorship on documents and artwork.
“I want Allida to be creator-centered, because I feel strongly that when artists are supported in making work from their deepest passions, kids get better books,” said Park in a statement. “Stories and voices that come from outside the dominant culture are essential for giving young readers a richer understanding of our shared and complex world. With Allida, we have the exhilarating opportunity to build on the hard-won inclusion work of past visionaries by freeing artists from any content expectations other than good writing and great stories.”
Park is not the only author to be tapped to run an imprint in recent years. In 2021, HarperCollins Children's Books debuted Heartdrum, an imprint devoted to publishing books by Indigenous creators, helmed by children's and YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith and HarperCollins Children's Books v-p and editorial director Rosemary Brosnan. In 2019, HMH Books for Young Readers launched the Versify imprint headed by Newbery Medalist Kwame Alexander. Following HarperCollins's 2021 acquisition of HMH, the former HMH Books for Young Readers division was restructured as the Clarion Group, comprised of the Clarion and Versify imprints.
The first title from Allida will be You Are Here: Connecting Flights, a middle grade exploration of contemporary Asian American identity told through interwoven stories, slated for March 2023. You Are Here will be edited by We Need Diverse Books co-founder Ellen Oh and will feature stories from 12 East and Southeast Asian American authors: Oh, Traci Chee, Mike Chen, Meredith Ireland, Mike Jung, Erin Entrada Kelly, Minh Lê, Grace Lin, Linda Sue Park, Randy Ribay, Christina Soontornvat, and Susan Tan. These authors will collectively make a one-time donation of $5,000, matched by HarperCollins Children’s Books, to StopAAPIHate.org.
Allida has also announced two additional forthcoming titles: Arya Shahi's debut YA novel-in-verse An Impossible Thing to Say and Cindy Chang's debut middle-grade graphic novel Secrets.
