It wasn't easy to slip a book in edgewise between Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Hillary Clinton's Living History last month. But the first weekend those two books were on sale, an unlikely title by a first-time author captured the #2 spot on Amazon.com. On June 22, Ron Clark's series of lessons on how to bring out the best in children, The Essential 55 (Hyperion, Apr.), drove a wedge between Harry and Hillary, several notches above the newly announced Oprah book club pick, John Steinbeck's East of Eden.
Priced at $20 and packaged in a small trim size, the book has remained in Amazon's top 10 over the last three weeks, and hits PW's nonfiction bestseller list at #3 this week. The author is Ron Clark, a sixth grade teacher at P.S. 83 in East Harlem, N.Y., who was chosen from a pool of 70,000 nominees to become Disney's Teacher of the Year in 2001. That honor helped him snag the attention of Oprah, who heartily touted his book on her June 20 show, dedicated to inspirational teachers.
Though it's been a while since Oprah's endorsement has pushed a book to the bestseller level, some industry observers see this as proof that the talk show host hasn't lost her magic. "This one seems to be working the way her picks did before the blahs of the last year and a half," commented Sally Lindsay, a buyer at Koen Book Distributors. "People are really concerned about education these days, and the price and size are right. It looks like it could have some legs."
Books about nurturing children in the classroom are becoming more common—for example, Rafe Esquith's similar mix of memoir and how-to manual There Are No Shortcuts (Pantheon) was also published in April. But it's "very rare for a book about education to get this kind of attention," said Sue Lubeck, owner of The Bookies in Denver. The store, which garners half of its sales from teachers and schools, has found its clientele eager to buy books to improve their performance. "Oprah or NPR are the key. If a book is recommended, people will buy it before they even look at it," she said.
For her part, Lubeck was refreshed by Clark's plainspoken emphasis on teaching children basic social skills, such as Rule # 2: maintain eye contact during conversation, and Rule #41: answer the phone respectfully. "Schools are increasingly picking up where parents are leaving off," she said. "It's not hard to embrace a book that urges a return to politeness and caring."
Going the Extra Mile
Another factor that may prolong the book's success is Clark himself. Even before Oprah stepped in, The Essential 55 was off to a strong start. "Wherever Ron went, he would sell 400 or 500 copies. The book was doing nicely on its own, but whenever Ron appeared, it did extraordinarily well," said Hyperion president Bob Miller. The house began with 16,000-copy first printing in mid-April, and had returned to press four times by early June, bringing the total in print to 38,500 copies before Clark was booked on Oprah. The house has since gone back for 200,000 more, making bindery shipments as the books are printed in an effort to keep up with the high demand.
A slight man with a boyish face, Clark regularly dresses in a suit and colorful tie to demonstrate respect for his students and his profession. At first sight, he may not look like a guy who spends recess with his students, learning how to double-dutch. But that's just one way this energetic white man from North Carolina has cast his spell over his predominantly black sixth-graders.
When he first arrived in New York, it was to answer a call for teachers in a city where he knew no one. Taking a room at the YMCA, he roamed the streets to find a school where he was needed. At P.S. 83, he immediately helped break up a fight and talked for 15 minutes with a riled student, who told him, "If there were teachers like you at this school, I wouldn't get into trouble, because you respected me." Taking those words as a sign, Clark convinced the principal to hire him.
The next challenge was to win the respect of his class. No teacher had survived an entire school year with them—many lasted only two or three months. So Clark wrote letters to the kids during the summer, visited every one of their homes before school started, and gradually won their trust. Since then, his passionate commitment to motivating his students, teaching them manners and showing them what life has to offer has brought many tangible rewards, including the Disney prize, which has also made him a sought-after speaker at graduations and teachers conferences around the country.
The apparently tireless Clark will devote the rest of his summer vacation to a bus tour of the south, coordinated by his lecture agent, while a freelance publicist arranges local media.
