Booksellers Celebrate Inclusivity, Diversity at Fifth Children’s Institute

Last week’s Children’s Institute (Ci5), presented by the American Booksellers Association’s ABC Children’s Group with the support of lead sponsor Baker & Taylor and 50 publishers large and small, brought together 238 booksellers — including 135 first-timers — from 156 independent bookstores. The event, held April 5–7 at the Red Lion Hotel on the River – Jantzen Beach in Portland, Oregon, featured three plenaries, three featured talks, and 10 education sessions, as well as discussion groups, parties, and an author reception.

The famous Powell’s City of Books flagship store in downtown Portland was the site of kickoff festivities, beginning with the Meet-and-Greet Reception for Scholarship Recipients; 47 booksellers were introduced to their publisher sponsors over craft beers and local snacks at the event. Next up was the Ci5 Welcome Reception and Backlist Book Swap Party, where booksellers fresh off full- and half-day Bookstore Tours and those arriving from all corners of the country packed the room. Many brought along their favorite backlist children’s, middle grade, or young adult titles to share with colleagues at the Book Swap. (Watch for a full list of swapped titles in an upcoming issue of Bookselling This Week.)

At the reception, ABA CEO Oren Teicher welcomed booksellers to the fifth Children’s Institute. “This is one extraordinary bookstore,” he said of Powell’s. “We are thrilled to be here and thrilled to be able to have this opening night at what is the largest independent bookstore in the United States.”

The night concluded at the hotel with the Young Professionals Afterparty, where Indies Forward representatives Kim Hooyboer of Third Place Books and Emma Nichols of The Elliott Bay Book Company spoke about the group’s goal of making bookselling a viable career.

“We want to hear from you guys about what you’re excited about and what programming we can bring to your regions, what kind of educational materials you want,” said Hooyboer, who also invited booksellers to visit Indies Forward at the Children’s Institute Consultation Station. Indies Forward was one of 14 different vendors that met with attendees during Consultation Station hours on Thursday and Friday.

The first of two full days of plenaries, featured talks, and education sessions kicked off on Thursday morning with remarks from Teicher about independent booksellers’ role in the children’s book business. “You and your colleagues are shaping the future of our industry,” said Teicher. From board books to picture books to young adult novels, “it is you and your colleagues who instill, encourage, and develop that lifelong love of books and ideas that fuels the unique and irreplaceable connection between authors and readers.”

To that end, Teicher announced that Shelf Awareness is partnering with ABA on a pilot e-newsletter program for the quarterly Kids’ Indie Next List. The program, to launch in June, will feature Indie Next List bookseller recommendations.

Teicher also welcomed Margaret Lane, vice president of retail sales for Baker & Taylor, to speak to the booksellers in attendance. “We at Baker & Taylor are more than thrilled to be the lead sponsor for Children’s Institute,” said Lane. “You are the frontline of the frontline of bookselling. You are the ones who turn these children into readers so that they learn more about the world around them, and we appreciate the work that you do very, very much.” In appreciation of booksellers’ work in the children’s book market, Baker & Taylor has launched the Kids First promotion, which offers a special discount to ABA member stores on all children’s and young adult trade books through Friday, April 21.

Breakfast keynote speaker Ilsa Govan, co-founder of Cultures Connecting and co-author of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Strategies for Facilitating Conversations on Race (Rowman & Littlefield), discussed “Hiring and Retaining a Diverse Workforce.” Implicit bias, she said, whether about race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other attribute, can negatively influence how truly welcoming a workplace is, but a variety of tools can help business owners combat that. See coverage of Govan’s presentation here.

Thursday morning’s education sessions included the roundtable discussion “Careers in Bookselling: How to Grow by Doing What You Love” as well as the panels “Understanding Development and Reading Styles to Connect With Middle Grade and Young Adult Readers” and “Transitioning Buyers to Edelweiss+.” Afternoon panel topics were “Working With Independent Publishers” and “Introduction to Social Media: Creating Effective Social Media Campaigns to Unlock Your Bookstore’s Potential,” as well as a roundtable discussion on promoting Children’s Book Week.

The featured talk “Where Are We and Where Are We Going? Trends and Findings in Children’s Bookselling,” presented by Allison Risbridger of NPD Book, provided attendees with an overview of the current Children’s Book Market, including print versus digital preferences, the various influences governing purchases, and content trends.

At the Rep Picks Speed Dating Lunch, booksellers learned all about upcoming titles from 33 Children’s Institute publisher sponsors. The Bookseller and Publisher Focus Groups, which were offered for the first time at Children’s Institute, gave booksellers an opportunity to meet with Ci5 sponsoring publishers in small groups to discuss issues and concerns, as well as productive and practical ways to work together to improve sales.

At the Author Reception on Thursday evening, 52 children’s book authors and illustrators met with booksellers and signed copies of their books. Attending booksellers, having completed their first full day of education and special events, spoke highly of the day’s programming.

Scholarship winner and Children’s Institute first-timer Mara Panich-Crouch of Fact & Fiction in Missoula, Montana, said the education session “Understanding Development and Reading Styles to Connect With Middle Grade and Young Adult Readers” was her favorite. “It was really helpful for those of us who don’t work directly with kids most of the time,” she noted.

“I’m having a fabulous time,” said Robin Stern of California’s Books Inc., a first-time attendee who was excited to see the many authors at the reception and to fill her tote bag with books. The education session that she found most influential was also “Understanding Development and Reading Styles.”

“I have been learning a lot that I can apply in my store,” Stern said.

Marlon Rigel of Pegasus Books in Berkeley, California, also a Children’s Institute first-timer, said he was there to learn more about marketing, social media, and events. “The full-day tour was great, and the education sessions have been interesting,” he said, adding that the institute provided the opportunity for him to get to know his colleagues.

The day’s festivities closed with the Scholastic Meet & Treat Afterparty featuring authors James Nicol (The Apprentice Witch), Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (Swing It, Sunny), Daniel José Older (Shadowhouse Fall), and Allen Say (Silent Days, Silent Dreams), who mingled with booksellers over drinks and dessert.

Friday morning began with the keynote presentation “Karibu Means Welcome” by author Jason Reynolds, in which he discussed his diversion from reading as a kid because of the irrelevance of classic stories to his own upbringing, how rap music turned him on to poetry, and how working at Karibu Books, which celebrated books by people of African descent, brought him a step closer to writing his own books. Reynolds’ upcoming young adult novel, Long Way Down, will be published by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books in October.

At the breakfast keynote, ABA CEO Oren Teicher spoke to attendees about the growth and vitality of independent bookstores, as well as the challenges they face, such as increased competition for customers’ time and money. “Even as we celebrate the fact that Amazon is now collecting sales tax nationwide, we have seen a year with lots of closings of department stores and other retailers across the country. It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that Amazon’s tentacles are reaching far and far more into every aspect of many American consumers’ lives as it pursues its goal of dominating retail, regardless of the cost to local communities,” said Teicher.

Competition authorities and elected officials are beginning to acknowledge the steep costs that cities, towns, and communities across America are paying so that one company can dominate the retail economy, said Teicher, who added, “I believe that if we again commit ourselves to working together and with our other retail colleagues, we can win this fight as well, and that, ultimately, we can carry the day and continue not just to survive but to thrive.”

Marley Dias, the 12-year-old behind the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign, joined Suzanna Hermans of Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck, New York, for Friday morning’s featured talk. Dias shared the inspiration for the campaign, her experiences with growing up without seeing representation of black girls in books, and what she’s been reading as of late. Dias is currently writing her own book, Marley Dias Gets It Done — And So Can You!, to be published by Scholastic in January 2018.

On Friday afternoon, author Philip Stead and illustrator Erin Stead joined their editor, Frances Gilbert, to talk about The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine, a new children’s book based on a bedtime story that Mark Twain told to his daughters. Using Twain’s handwritten notes about the story, the Steads have spent months writing and illustrating the picture book, which will be released in September by Doubleday Books for Young Readers. Read more about their Featured Talk here.

Breakout education sessions throughout the day included “Fostering an Inclusive Environment for Staff and Customers With Disabilities,” “Growing Sales With Your Favorite Backlist Titles,” “Personal Finance for Booksellers,” and more. The Small Press Lunch featured eight small press publishers, who shared their top picks for the current and upcoming seasons, while six small publishers participated in the dedicated Publisher Consultation Station.

Author and illustrator Rachel Ignotofsky closed the day’s programming with a keynote presentation on women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math and their fight against institutionalized sexism. Ignotofsky’s Women in Science, which will be followed by Women in Sports this July from Ten Speed Press, pairs text and illustrations to make these subjects accessible to readers and aims to spread the message about women and girls in these male-dominated fields.

Many booksellers stuck around the Red Lion for one final event: the Post-Ci5 Trivia Party. With team names like Cheers, Clueless, and Hermione Should Have Been the Main Character, booksellers fought for bragging rights with their children’s book knowledge, answering questions about the name of Atreyu’s horse in Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, the title of the second book in Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Shadow Children series, the real name of the Wizard of Oz, and more. Bragging rights went to team Ready to Rumpus!

Watch for additional coverage of Children’s Institute keynote presentations, featured talks, and education sessions in upcoming editions of Bookselling This Week.