My Friday morning at Random House

One of the lovely treats of Kidlitcon 2012 was the Friday publisher previews.  The major publishing houses of New York opened their doors to groups of bloggers, and the editors themselves gave us lovely previews of their forthcoming books.  Thanks so much, Publishers, for doing this, and thanks so much, Monica, for organizing it!

My Friday morning publisher was Random House.  I arrived early, but was happy to spend time perusing hundreds of titles from years past on display, and musing about how much money they would sell for on ebay should R.H. become desperate (I look at my own books and muse about the same thing, quite often, so I'm not actually worried that R.H. is going to need to do this).  Seriously, it was rather awe inspiring to see all the books they'd published that I recognized...

Moving on up the building, us bloggers were welcomed with tasty breakfast snacks, and I found myself in conversation with Jim Thomas, editor of Seraphina.  It was lovely to see his pride in all the stars its gotten (seven, which is remarkable for a debut book), and fascinating to hear of the struggle for its US cover (certain more commercial interests wanted something less black and white and more (this is my conjecture) along the lines of a girl in a beautiful dress of inappropriateness passionately embracing a dragon while the wind blows her long (probably) red hair into tangles).    (You can read more about how Seraphina came to be published here at Random Acts of Reading).   So anyway, that was very interesting indeed, and then we all sat down to hear about this fall's books!

The presentations kicked off with apps and enhanced books and picture books.  One in particular looks like its going to be a classic for the ages--  I have a Dream, in which the more kid friendly elements of Martin Luther King, Jr. are illustrated by Kadir Nelson (and now I am wondering if anyone has nominated it for the Cybils yet...it really was lovely....goes to check...and lo!  Now I have my picture book non-fiction nomination).

We then moved on to the Magic Tree House books, which are now twenty years old!  R. H. is doing special full color editions of the first four (they are very attractive), and the author and illustrator both got a chance to go back in and fix small details and inconsistencies that had been bugging them all these years.  Cool.

A new Squish book just came out--Captain Disaster!  (Why haven't you gotten it for me, asks my 9 year old, reading over my shoulder.  I need to fix that.)  Squish is a great graphic novel series for the seven to nine year old set.  I promise.  (There's a new Lunch Lady book too--Lunch Lady and the Picture Day Peril).

But the graphic novel I'm most excited for is The City of Ember, in full color!

There are several companion books/sequels just out, or coming soon, that gladden my middle grade loving heart, but I'll be reviewing them later, d.v., so I'll just move quickly on to some YA!  (which is ironic, in that people reading my blog do so for the mgsff...).  So I'll just quickly mention Joshua Dread, the start of a superhero/supervillain series that looks like fun...

Like The Paladin Prophecy.  Mysterious boarding school ftw!  The final book of Montmaray--The FitzOsbornes at War! (coming Oct. 9).   I want even more now to read Unspoken, by Sarah Rees Brennan...

And there were more, but I have to go now.  In any event, I came home with a generous Magic Tree House bag of books,  one of which, The Blood Keeper, diverted me very nicely indeed on the bus ride home.....

THANK YOU so much, editors and publicists for Random House, for taking the time to share your books with us!  And for the tasty snacks.

(now having done the easy part, I'm going try to add illustrations in the new blogger!  Oh joy).