(I can’t find statistics that break down the sales data in this manner.) As more and more readers access books through e-readers, and as bookstores disappear and library budgets shrink and shelves are weeded to make room for the new, how will readers learn of I, Juan de Pareja? Or even more endangered, non-Newbery backlist wonders like The Second Mrs. I assume that most e-book sales are for frontlist or very recent backlist title, with a few exceptions. I can’t help but wonder how e-readers will affect children’s and YA midlist and backlist. Nesbit’s books: bright, lively new covers on these fabulous titles are decades overdue.) The Quentin Blake illustrations for the Roald Dahl books, while not always my favorites (I still miss Nancy Eckholm Burkert’s James and the Giant Peach), gave incredible new life to those books. The pop from a repackage probably doesn’t last as long as we might like - the books are quickly subsumed by new titles again - but can have a lasting impact. Not only can a savvy reissue land on media and consumer radar, it reminds us booksellers about these titles we have long loved and want to remember to recommend. I have to say, I love it when publishers smartly repackage backlist classics, as long as the covers are appealing, and serve at least as improvements over the prior versions. So I am concerned with the question of how best to keep worthy backlist (and not just Newbery titles, which at least have the stature of the award and ongoing library/school support) alive for young readers today.
And I’m a bookseller who deliberately created a bookstore with a deep backlist, and a store culture that is particularly appreciative of the depth and enduring quality of great books that have been around for a while. With all the noise in the world, I find it is all too easy to let great backlist slide, even Newbery backlist. Books like I, Juan de Pareja, The Trumpeter of Krakow, Fog Magic, The Moorchild, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Great Gilly Hopkins, Rabbit Hill. I asked her if she had discovered any Newbery favorites she hadn’t been aware of, which got me thinking about my own favorite Newbery titles, some of which I realized I haven’t recommended to a child in too long. A friend of mine is in school to become a children’s librarian, and one of her classes has her reading as many Newbery books as possible.