Mar 13

Mar 13 Episode #54: Out of Print!

Welcome back! Thank you so much for continuing to listen to the Book Friends Forever podcast. Grace and Alvina appreciate all your reviews and feedback. Once they hit 100 reviews on Apple Podcasts, they plan to have a drawing and gift give-away! It may be the opportunity to be a guest on an episode. If you have any suggestions on other prizes, please send them an email! They now have 70 reviews. Please leave a positive review on Apple Podcasts if you have an extra minute!

“How have you been?”

Alvina: “I went skiing!” We learn that Alvina has only skied three times in the past 20 years, but what a thrill. Her legs remembered what to do! She went skiing with some friends this past weekend up at Windham Mountain. At work, they are all still handling the Disney integration an they officially hired a new executive editor. Her parents who were aboard the Diamond Princess Cruise with Coronavirus, are still in quarantine but are healthy. Some of her aunts and uncles on went on the cruise were tested positive for the virus and are being treated. They are predicted to fully recover.

Grace: It has been a nice quiet school break this week. Hazel went to Taekwondo camp and loved it. They had time for new family projects like tapping their own maple trees to make maple syrup! Grace also finished up sketches for her new picture book.

Out of print books!

Grace’s Christmas board books that are no longer in print.

The Book Friends discuss why books go out of print and what may be good and bad about that. Some of the Christmas board books by Grace that didn’t do very well are coming back. Why do books go out of print and why do some of them come back?

There are books that are just ahead of their time in some ways. The Christmas carols were about an Asian character and Grace suggests they didn’t do well because people may not have been ready for a non-white character as a main character. Alvina mentions The Sunita Experiment by Mitali Perkins featuring Indian American Characters. It was brought back but clearly outdated so they changed the title to The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen. They needed to make a few tweaks. It is pretty rare that an out of print book makes a comeback!

Grace asks Alvina, “how do things go out of print?” She is not sure on the exact measure but there is a threshold in a contract agreement regarding sales. If the book isn’t selling, the publisher has a right to pull it off the shelves. Now there are E-books and that can mean books stay available longer. Books can be timeless, but sometimes books just expire. Grace brings up her book, the Red Thread.

The Red Thread was written about an Asian girl being adopted. It focused primarily on the parents. Here’s an example where Grace got into trouble with #Ownvoices because she feels a little ashamed that she did not have the first-hand experience or knowledge to write the book. You can read more about her thoughts on this here.

Some books are meant to move on at some point. As the author though, they are hard to let go of sometimes!

“What are you grateful for?”

Alvina has an upcoming trip to Mexico and Morocco that she is really looking forward to! She is grateful for the downtime.

Grace is grateful for the exact opposite: Staying put! She enjoyed staying home with her family and not going anywhere. She is really grateful for their home and taking a break.

2-Minute Book Review with Alison Morris:

The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman.

“An honest and deeply moving book that invites kids to ask meaningful questions about love, loss, privilege, poverty, opportunity, expectations, and human potential.”

Alison Morris is a nationally recognized children's book buyer with an infectious enthusiasm for reading and 20 years' experience matching books to readers. As the Senior Director of Title Selection for nonprofit First Book, she oversees the curation of children’s and young adult books on the First Book Marketplace, hand-selecting a diverse range of titles that speak to and address the needs of kids in underserved communities, with a keen eye to inclusion, authenticity, and kid-appeal. She previously served as Senior Editor at Scholastic Book Clubs, Children's Book Buyer for Wellesley Booksmith and The Dartmouth Bookstore, and was the founding blogger of the ShelfTalker children’s book blog for Publishers Weekly. She'll be joining us from her home near Washington, DC where she spends LOTS of time discussing books with her husband, illustrator and graphic novelist Gareth Hinds.