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Publishers Weekly Children's Features

News from the ABC
Jennifer M. Brown -- 6/19/00
In honor of the Association of Booksellers for Children's 15th anniversary, the board added a day of pre-conference programming on Wednesday, May 31, featuring Web site workshops, a discussion on BookSense.com by Len Vlahos, booktalks of favorite titles by ABC members and an "Idea Explosion" on everything from how to market your store to avoiding stress and keeping staff happy (see News, June 12).
At the annual meeting on Thursday, ABC's Caron Chapman announced that the ABC Web site (www.abfc.com) is now up and running; it lists the organization's mission statement, member stores and phone numbers by city, and recent award-winning titles. During the reports on regional bookstore associations, NEBA's Cathy Goddard promoted the effectiveness of their region's listserve, which allows members to exchange ideas and share solutions to common problems. The ABA/CBC sponsored an afternoon of programming, in which the ABA's Michael Hoynes described the positioning of BookSense.com to consumers, and a panel of independent booksellers discussed how they differentiate themselves from the chains and Internet booksellers (see News, June 12).

At the Evening for Children's Booksellers on Friday night, a silent auction of 68 pieces of art garnered $19,000. The auction and the dinner turned out to be a great success despite the ABC's having had to scramble when the scheduled sponsor of the dinner pulled out last December; Scholastic stepped in to co-sponsor. The 1999 Lucile Micheels Pannell Awards were presented at the ABA/CBC children's book and author breakfast on Friday morning. Terri Schmitz of the Children's Book Shop of Brookline, Mass., won in the children's bookstore category; and Julie Norcross of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Mich., accepted the award in the general bookstore category.

Fond farewells: Olivia and Thacher Hurd, who started Peaceable Kingdom Press in Berkeley, Calif., 17 years ago, offering greeting cards, posters and other items based on children's book artwork, announced that they had sold their business to Sandy Jaffe of The Booksource in St. Louis, Mo. And Pleasant Company founder and president Pleasant Rowland gave word at a special performance for booksellers at American Girl Place that she would be retiring from the business she began in 1985 (and sold to Mattel in 1998). She thanked booksellers for the company's more than 65 million books sold, 85% of which were sold through bookstores.


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