Welcome to our fall 2015 children’s announcements issue. Along with listings of books for kids and teens that will be published between August 1 and January 31, we have an interview with M.T. Anderson, in which the National Book Award winner tells the story behind his first work of nonfiction, Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad. We’ve also got a feature on the growth of nonfiction in the retail market, and offer a look at Seuss Enterprises, on the occasion of the publication of Dr. Seuss’s newly discovered What Pet Should I Get? Finally, publishers share the books they especially love to read with the kids in their lives. Happy reading!
Is Nonfiction Having Its Moment?The Enterprise Behind Dr. SeussWhat Publishers Read at Home with KidsM.T. Anderson Writes History... in Four MovementsFall 2015 Children's Announcements: Publishers A-DFall 2015 Children's Announcements: Publishers E-MFall 2015 Children's Announcements: Publishers N-RFall 2015 Children's Announcements: Publishers S-ZAbout Our Cover Artist
Christoph Niemann, the New Yorker cover artist and New York Times visual columnist, backed into the world of children’s books. At first, he dismissed the notion, feeling that, for an illustrator, “to do a children’s book is so sadly predictable.” Once he had a child, though, “I told him long bedtime stories basically to bore him to sleep. And then, accidentally, I realized one of them might make sense as a book.”
In all, Niemann has published five picture books, with one in the works and another under contract (he’s also developing an app—work that he calls “incredibly complicated but a lot of fun”). Though he has illustrated a few books written by someone else, he prefers creating his own text: “I find it very difficult to illustrate someone’s stories. You’re always trying to catch up with their imagination.”
With books for children, he says, “You have a relationship with the book, and see it evolve with every reading. The ritual of reading it is almost as important as the story.” And he’s intrigued by what it is that makes for a successful picture book—that magic that strikes the right chord with kids. “That’s the beauty of all art and literature,” he says. “For hundreds of years people have tried to figure out the secret. The unpredictability is awesome.”
