On April 22, Random House/Disney Books for Young Readers debuted 12 titles tied to the May 30 Disney/Pixar film release, Finding Nemo. Formats include a read-aloud storybook, junior novelization, Pictureback shape book, Step into Reading and Stepping Stone humor book, as well as several coloring and activity titles, with initial print runs per title ranging from 125,000 to 490,000. A boxed set of board books will come out in the fall.
The film is the fifth from the animation house Pixar, after Toy Story and Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc. Random House previously published books tied to both the Toy Story characters and Monsters Inc., for which it released 18 titles in 2001. The Nemo program, although smaller, will include several new formats, including a bathtub sticker book and a bath book packaged with a tub crayon—both capitalizing on the film's aquatic theme—as well as a Little Golden Book. According to Random House's Melody Meyer, this is the first time a Pixar film has been translated into this format.
