Booksellers looking to guide young readers in search of titles that reflect their diverse backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives will soon have new options. Beginning in August, Australia-based Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing will bring its Bright Light imprint stateside via eight picture books with storylines that center on gender, the environment, and other timely subjects. The imprint will be spearheaded by publishing director Marisa Pintado, publisher Chren Byng, and art director Pooja Desai.
Bright Light’s North American launch follows on the heels of a strong reception in its local and international markets. “Many of our Australian Bright Lights titles have already found successful homes in North America with other publishers,” noted Pintado, citing Sophie Beer’s Love Makes a Family and Kindness Makes Us Strong (Dial) and Sandhya Parappukkaran and Michelle Pereira’s The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name (Abrams). “We are confident we have lots more to offer U.S. readers.”
With the help of Hardie Grant’s longtime distributor, Chronicle Books, Bright Light will bring a fresh set of voices to the picture book genre—a market where Pintado believes the imprint can provide an entry point for parent-child dialogue. “What sets Bright Light apart is that their narratives can help adults navigate the sometimes tricky, sometimes awkward, and always important conversations with their bright and curious children,” she said. “Bright Light stories seek to show us something about our places in the world, show us how we can treat others well, and how we can try our best to understand them and be understood ourselves.”
Shining a Light
The Bright Light logo was designed with the brand’s mission in mind, showcasing an open book laid flat and its pages fanning out of a torch. “It’s a light shining through the darkness, through an arched doorway for all to walk through,” Pintado explained. While the two words are positioned opposite each other, they are still connected, “which plays on the idea of seeing your reality from a new perspective and bringing us together through shared experiences and stories,” she added.
Also reflecting Bright Light’s core focus are five thematic pillars—Bodies, Characters, Diversity, Environment, and Gender—which are represented across the debut lineup. Each book includes one or more of these guiding principles, as some topics may overlap in multiple storylines. For instance, Come Over to My House highlights families living with disabilities and encompasses Bodies and Diversity, while Remarkable Remy explores a friendship between a nonbinary autistic child and a neurotypical child and features the Diversity and Gender pillars. “I am particularly proud of the special attention our art director paid to designing this book with neurodivergent brains in mind, including easy-to-read typefaces, a clear hierarchy of elements, ample white space, and a calm color palette,” Pintado said of the latter title.
Bright Light’s core eight books—rolling out in August, September, and January 2024—are among the 16–20 titles that the company plans to publish annually. While the initial focus is on picture books, the editorial team aspires to include older readers in subsequent releases. Forthcoming subjects will include gender expression, pregnancy after loss, renewable energy, and life transitions, such as moving to a new home. “We are also working with [author] Scott Stuart (Alone; How to Be a Real Man; The Very First You) on a new book based on his viral project, Bedtime Stories for Hard Days,” Pintado said.
