Most people have a favorite book from their childhoods that has gone out of print. With that in mind, in 1999 the New York Review of Books began reissuing books that its employees and others remembered fondly. "We get ideas of what books to bring back from some of the editors here, as well as from librarians, booksellers and authors," said marketing and sales director Linda Hollick.
Their first children's title, released in 2003 under the Children's Collection imprint, was Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill; by the end of this year, there will be seven Jenny titles in print. "The Jenny series has done very well and has been really well received," said Hollick. "At BEA and ALA, we got an amazing response, with people literally jumping up and down when they see these books."
This August, the company will reissue D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths , which was first published in 1967 and has been out of print for more than 20 years. The d'Aulaires' sons, who gave permission for the edition, had a fair amount of input about the way the reissue should be put together. "They wanted us to stay with the look of the original book and we worked with them until we had gotten the quality just right," said Hollick. The book features a preface by Michael Chabon—one of the d'Aulaires' sons had heard Chabon liked the book as a child, so the publisher approached him about writing the preface.
Response to the news of the book's publication has been very positive. According to Hollick, "People tell us that the only copy they could get was through out-of-print services and the prices were quite high. They are happy they can now get a copy for $24.95."
