Wondering why Dav Pilkey’s Adventures of Ook and Gluk hasn’t appeared on the NYT Children’s best seller lists? It’s not going to, because it’s on the Graphic Books list, where it’s been in the top spot for two weeks. It’s a bit of an oddity on that list; not only is it the only title for kids (the rest are all adult and YA titles) but it’s one of the few published by a traditional book publisher, rather than a comics publisher.

Until about five years ago, kids comics were an afterthought for comics publishers, and book publishers didn’t think about them at all. Then, the success of Jeff Smith’s Bone series, published under Scholastic’s Graphix imprint in 2005, lead other book publishers to explore the format. The Bone series was adopted by kids when Smith was self-publishing, and has continued to be consistently popular since Scholastic rereleased the series.

Titles like Pilkey’s Captain Underpants and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series have shifted the publishing landscape in comics’ favor by proving that hybrids, or titles that are part comic-part prose, can also attract a substantial audience. The fact that hybrids include prose also helps assuage parents’ fears (however unfounded) that their children aren’t reading real books if they’re reading comics. Full blown comics still have a bit of a climb in terms of proving their worth to skeptical parents, but are finally starting to get their due as valued reading all on their own.

A number of respected authors from the book publishing side of the pond have written engaging comics for children. One of my personal favorites, Shannon and Dean Hale’s Rapunzel’s Revenge arrived on the scene from Bloomsbury in 2008. Shannon Hale, the author of the Newbury-honor winning title Princess Academy and the lauded Goose Girl series, is a recognizable prose author who speaks eloquently about graphic novels as both engaging and quality reading. Her essay Graphic Novels: The Great Satan, remains one of my favorites in illuminating the reasons graphic novels are worth young and old readers’ time.

I find, however, that far too often librarians who know the great kids comics from the book world — Jennifer and Matt Holm’s Babymouse, Jarrett Krosoczka’s Lunch Lady, Eleanor Davis’s Stinky, and so on — are unaware of the equally brilliant kids comics from the comics world. Top Shelf Comix publishes titles to rival book publishers’ finest including Christian Slade’s Korgi, Andy Runton’s Owly, and James Kolchalka’s Johnny Boo series. Oni Press has a strong history of publishing titles for younger readers including Matthew Loux’s Salt Water Taffy, Chris Schweizer’s Crogan Adventures, Ted Naifeh’s Polly and the Pirates and Courtney Crumrin series. Dark Horse, purveyors of the fine Star Wars kids comics that never stay on the shelf, also offer Sergio Aragones Groo, John Stanley’s Little Lulu collections, and tween favorites like Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo. On the manga side of the business, VIZ has done a fine job of introducing a number of popular kids manga titles, including Sayuri Tatsuyama’s Happy Happy Clover , Kenji Sonishi’s Leave it to PET! , Yohei Sakai’s Dinosaur King, and Akira Toriyama’s COWA!. UDON has a whole line of manga just for younger readers, including Shunshin Maeda’s Ninja Baseball Kyuma and Tomomi Mizuna’s The Big Adventures of Majoko.

Libraries own far fewer of the kids graphic novels from comic publisher than they do of those from book publishers. According to WorldCat, all the titles mentioned above from book publishers are owned by 1,500 or more libraries (over 5,000 own Diary of a Wimpy Kid), while those from the comics publishers are owned by an average of just 150 libraries (Owly is the top title, owned by 748 libraries). This is because comics publishers get little review attention from the trade journals that librarians rely on for buying  (School Library Journal, Library Media Connection, The Horn Book). Whatever the reason for the lack of coverage, the result is that libraries are missing out on some great titles.
……..

To give you a head start on the comics world’s upcoming titles, here are a few that should be on everyone’s radar:

Okie Dokie Donuts by Chris Eliopoulis

Pirate Penguin vs. Ninja Chicken by Ray Friesen

Monster on the Hill by Rob Harrell

Maddy Kettle: The Adventure of a Thimblewitch by Eric Orchard

Korgi: A Hollow Beginning (volume 3) by Christian Slade

And, not to overlook the book publishers, here are a few new and upcoming favorites from them:

Tower of Treasure by Scott Chantler

Lila and Ecco’s Do-It-Yourself Comic Club by Willow Dawson

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch

The Olympians series by George O’Connor (Zeus and Athena are out, Hera is due out next spring)

The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier

Owly and Wormy: Friends All Aflutter! by Andy Runton

Adventures in Cartooning Activity Book by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost

What are the titles you’re most looking forward to in the next few months?

Literary darling Jonathan Franzen’s new book Freedom is the top-selling adult hardcover fiction title on USA Today’s Best Seller List — we also hear that it debuts at #1 on the upcoming NYT Fiction list.

Still, the book takes a back seat to Mockingjay. Suzanne Collins’ title is #1 on the USA Today list, which reflects sales of all books, regardless of format or age level. Freedom comes in at #5, following Mockingjay (on for two weeks), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (69 weeks), Debbie Macomber’s 1022 Evergreen Place (original pbk; this is its first week), and The Girl Who Played with Fire (58 weeks).

The new issue of People magazine (9/20) features Booker shortlist title Room, by Emma Donoghue. In Europe, the book has been compared to the true story of an Austrian man who imprisoned his daughter in the basement of the family home for 24 years, fathering seven children with her. People sees a comparison to an American story, asking,

What must childhood have been like for Jaycee Dugard’s two daughters? A year after their rescue from the sex offender who kidnapped their mother and fathered them, this compelling new novel offers an imaginative take on a similar plight.

Room: A Novel Emma Donoghue Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company – (2010-09-13) ISBN / EAN: 0316098337 / 9780316098335

Hachette Audio; UNABR; 9781607886273; $29.98
Hachette Large Print; 9780316120579; Trade Pbk; $24.99

…………………………

The other titles reviewed in the issue are all being released this week:

Getting to Happy, Terry Mcmillan, (Viking, 9/7) 2.5 of 4 stars

Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors into a Family , Glenn Plaskin, (Center Street, 9/8) 3 of 4 stars

The Widower’s Tale, Julia Glass, (Pantheon, 9/7)  4 of 4 stars

Vermilion Drift, William Kent Krueger, Atria (9/7) 3 of 4 stars

Reminder: Since People’s book reviews are not readily available online, we maintain an archive.

It’s probably no surprise that there’s several directors vying for a crack at the film version of Hunger Games. Hollywood seems to thinks it’s like Twilight — a series with a strong following by both kids and adults. Here’s the possibilities, according to the movie news site, Deadline, along with the films they are know for.

Gary Ross — Pleasantville, Sea Biscuit

Sam Mendes — American Beauty, Revolutionary Road

David Slade — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Andrew Adamson — Shrek, Chronicles of Narnia

Rupert Sanders — a “major British director of commercials”; this would be his film debut

Susanna White — Nanny McPhee Returns, Generation Kill

Francis Lawrence — I Am Legend and, coming in April, Water for Elephants

Meanwhile, many are saying that Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz is the top candidate to play the teen heroine, Katniss Everdeen.

Zooming up to #10 on Amazon’s sales rankings on its first day of publication is a non-conformist manifesto in a conformist package (a book — or as Craig Ferguson puts it, a “BO-OK from the Beforetimes” — and from a New York publishing house). Based on a popular blog of the same title, it’s The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau.

The author says he will be doing an “Unconventional Book Tour” — collectively organized, self-funded and hitting 63 cities.

The book was not reviewed prepub; the libraries that own it are showing holds on light ordering.

The Art of Non-Conformity Chris Guillebeau Retail Price: $14.95 Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: Perigee – (2010-09-07) ISBN 9780399536106

The new Bob Woodward book on President Obama is called Obama’s Wars, according to the AP. Woodward first appearance for the book will be an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC’s World News on 9/27, the day of the book’s release.

Library holds are light so far.

Obama’s Wars Bob Woodward Retail Price: $30.00 Hardcover: 464 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-09-27) ISBN / EAN: 1439172498 / 9781439172490

As the New York Times needlessly reminds us, “The fall is really a long lead-in to the holiday season, the period when bookstores see the highest volume of sales for the year.” As a result, the season tends to be filled with big names, making it difficult to break out new authors

So, it’s no surprise that fall book previews are mostly devoid of surprises. Below are recent consumer media previews (we’re linking to the previews at the right, under Books of Fall ’10 — Previews):

USA Today Fall Books — Interactive Calendar — a great, quick take on 33 titles, mostly by familiar names, with just two less well-known titles:

• Sept. 14 — The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, Susan Casey; Doubleday big nonfiction adventure story by O Magazine editor-in-chief.

• Nov. 16 — The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner) — Nearly everyone in the US has been touched in some way by the disease, a ready audience for what advance readers are calling “a riveting and moving book.”  The esteemed Nan Graham, editor of Scribner, says the is the most important book she has published in her career.

Associated Press — Books of Fall — This overview is partcularly strong on political books and presidential bios. The lead title, also included on every other list is The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race, Grand Central.

NYT — Fall Big Books — lists Stephen Hawking’s new book as a “sleeper hit”. Well, suggesting that the universe didn’t need a god to create it is bringing attention, but Hawking is hardly an unknown, having sold plenty of copies of his earlier A Brief History of Time (although there are those that claim nobody read it). This list includes several titles by and about musicians.

Wall Street Journal — Big Books of Fall — Even though this list is limited to just five titles, the WSJ manages to pick a title that is not on any other list, The Wake of Forgiveness, Bruce Machart, saying, it “…has reminded early readers of Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck and Deadwood with a little less swearing.” Since this was also on of my BEA Librarian’s Shout & Share picks, I naturally think it’s a brilliant selection.

New York Magazine — Fall Books Preview: The Twenty — Tending toward the literary, this may be the only preview that picks the Booker short-listed “hall-of-mirrors picaresque,” C by Tom McCarthy (Knopf).

Update: “ALA is most definitely not selling its trade show to Reed.” ALA Exec. Director Keith Fields told Library Journal, but did say, “BEA and ALA have been talking about ways in which we might work more closely together in the future.”

Initial reactions by librarians on Twitter to the idea of a combined show were positive.

Rumored for years, but intensifying in the last few months, it’s now official that Reed Exhibitions is in talks to take over both ALA shows, Annual and MidWinter, as reported by Publishers Weekly. Several years ago, Reed bought the former American Booksellers Association show, turning it in to Book Expo America. The Association continues to run educational programs in conjunction with Book Expo.

Further, the PW story says that the ALA Annual and BEA shows may be joined. PW notes the shows are “very different.” Well, there’s an understatement. BEA, of course, is dominated by publishers, while ALA floor space features library vendors, many of them technology companies.

If this comes to pass, ALA would gain much-needed revenue from the sale, librarians would have access to a wider range of big-name authors, more galleys, and would not have to choose between attending the two shows. BEA, which has been downscaled over the years, would stand a better chance of surviving. If there are losers in the deal, it’s independent booksellers, who will compete for attention with the 15 to 20 thousand librarians who regularly come to ALA.

The two shows have a different approach to choosing locations. BEA has been sticking to New York, to make the show less costly for the majority of publishers, while ALA changes venues, to make the event more accessible to a broader range of libraries. The PW story says, “If a deal is reached, Reed is believed to favor locating BEA and the ALA annual meeting in 2012 in Chicago.”

Nothing is definite yet; Reed’s only comment is that talks are in progress. Library Journal reported on the PW story, and is seeking comment from ALA.

Among books being published this week, we’ve covered several nonfiction titles that have received advance attention:

Stephen Hawking is stirring up  religious leaders by proclaiming that the universe could have come out of chaos in The Grand Design — Hawking Challenges Newton

A book on Bob Dylan got short shrift from the prepub sources, but is featured in several consumer reviews and is New York magazine’s top title of the fall — Dylan Book Getting Advance Praise

A history of African-American migration to the North has also been widely admired (and is on the cover of the NYT BR) — WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS Rising

Other nonfiction titles to be aware of this week:

Fury: A Memoir by Koren Zailckas, Viking — following, Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood, Zailckas discovers that her sobriety masks repressed rage. Kirkus calls it “A harrowing tale of one woman’s journey into the depths of her own psychosis.”

The Weekend That Changed Wall Street: An Eyewitness Account by Maria Bartiromo and Catherine Whitney, Portfolio — CNBC’s “Money Honey” describes the wild ride when, during a single weekend, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and AIG were all under siege.

The Elephant’s Journey by Jose Saramago, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — by the Portuguese winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature who died earlier this year. A “charming tale of an elephant given by the 16th-century Portuguese king João III to the Archduke of Austria” (Publishers Weekly).

Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best… and Learn from the Worst by Robert I. Sutton, Business Plus — from the author of The No Asshole Rule, “This entertaining, satisfying guide is a wakeup call for bosses everywhere–and a survival guide for those who work for them” (Publishers Weekly).

SuperBaby: 12 Ways to Give Your Child a Head Start in the First 3 Years, Sterling — “Bermans absorbing new book will help parents give their youngsters a nurturing head start and a firm foundation for growth and learning” (Publishers Weekly).

It can now be quantified; an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart does more for a book’s sales than a review in the NYT Book Review.

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert L. O’Connell, Random House is reviewed in the Sunday NYT BR; it rose to #106. on Amazon sales rankings.

The author appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 7/30. The book  rose to #36 and went on to appear on the next NYT Hardcover Nonfiction list at #32.

With that in mind, below are the authors scheduled for this week:

Tuesday (today)

Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn’s book is at #539 on Amazon, well ahead of Runway judge Nina Garcia’s Look Book: What to Wear for Every Occasion (Hyperion, 8/10/10), at #1,426. It’s likely to pull even further ahead after this appearance.

Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work Tim Gunn Retail Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Gallery – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 1439176566 / 9781439176566

Thursday

Meghan Mccain continues her media blitz for her new book (she even competed on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me this weekend). Still, the book is at a not-very-impressive #1,274 on Amazon. We’ll check in after her Daily Show appearance to see how much it moves the needle.

Dirty Sexy Politics Meghan Mccain Retail Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Hyperion – (2010-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 1401323774 / 9781401323776

No authors are scheduled to appear on the Colbert Report this week.

The big fiction title of the week is Sara Gruen’s Ape House (Spiegel & Grau). Gruen faces heavy anticipation after the runaway success of her 2006 title, Water for Elephants. The new book is about a group of researchers studying communication with bonobo apes through sign language. Consumer reviews have compared the book unfavorably to the previous title, echoing PW and Kirkus.

The NYT,  “…the novel address[es] a vast sweep of subjects: the potential for and implications of interspecies communication; the varieties and uses of sexual contact, both among humans and among the other primates; family dynamics and dysfunction; the abduction and enslavement of animals for scientific research; the crass obtuseness of pop culture; the very notion of what constitutes humanity and the humane.”

The LA Times;  “Animal lovers, particularly, will find much to like in Gruen’s depictions of the apes and the research into their language skills. And we do learn a lot about bonobos. But the book’s failure is in not concocting an engaging story through which to preach the beauty of the bonobos and the darker aspects of animal experimentation. The message is the book’s reason to be, she seems to tell us. But a novel requires more attention be paid to the art.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune; Intriguing tale of saving apes is short on passion

Lurking in the reviews are indicators that the book may become a hit with readers; the NYT says it’s “fun,” the L.A. Times calls it “charming.” Booklist, alone among the prepub reviews to give it a positive review, starred it and called it “wildly entertaining.”

And, in the Barnes & Noble Review, critic Jane Ciabattari calls the book flat-out “captivating.”

In a video, Gruen talks about her sources of inspiration.

Water for Elephants, the movie, starring Reese Witherspoon and Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson is scheduled to release next April.

Several libraries have received Ape House; holds are averaging 2:1 on moderate orders (2 copies each per large branch).

Ape House: A Novel Sara Gruen Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 320 pages Publisher: Spiegel & Grau – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 0385523211 / 9780385523219

LT; Random House; Pbk;  9780739328040; $26
RH Audio; UNABR; 9780739368541; $40

Other Notable Fiction On Sale Next Week

Sure Bets

Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan (Viking) the four women  from Waiting to Exhale are back. Essence, which ran excerpts beginning in May and concluding this month, declares “McMillan has lost none of her edge, humor or ability to capture our stories.”

The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass (Pantheon) — Who can resist the subject?  A newly retired librarian experiences unexpected life changes.

Zero History by William Gibson (Putnam) — on the Amazon Top 100 for the past three days, now at #57 and rising, the author of Neuromancer; “returns to his familiar concerns with hacker culture, surveillance, paranoia, and viral marketing, with occasional digressions into the semiotics of fashion and celebrity and references to cosplay, base jumping, and the Festo AirPenguin (look it up)” Booklist.

The Thorn, by Beverly Lewis (Bethany House) —  the launch of a new series, The Rose Trilogy from the queen of the Amish romance genre.

Watch List

Russian Winter, by Daphne Kalotay, (Harper).  An aging ballerina recalls her complicated past while putting together her jewelry for an auction.  A hit at the ALA First Author program, the galley of Kalotay’s book has picked up librarian fans and strong prepub reviews. It’s a favorite of Kayleigh George, HarperCollins Library Marketing Associate; hear her speak about it here.

The Mullah’s Storm by Thomas Young (Putnam) is a debut novel about male and female co-pilots downed with a high-value prisoner in Taliban territory in winter that’s had strong prepub reviews. PW says that Young “draws on his own war experiences for verisimilitude, which, along with believable characters and an exciting plot, makes this one of the better thrillers to come out of the Afghan theater.”

A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell (Algonquin) is “an irresistible romp about a lovelorn 19th-century doctor who falls in with Sigmund Freud—and some dangerously attractive women,” says the  Oprah Magazine, which features it as one of 10 books to pick up in September, along with a reading guide.

The announcement of the Booker Short List was somewhat delayed by the transit strike in London today. The following are the six titles, by current Amazon sales rankings in the U.S. (The Guardian features a slide show with a description and the British publishing history of each title. Warning: those are the British covers):

#422 Room, Emma Donoghue, (Little, Brown, 9/13) — coming out next week, Room has received advance buzz and comparisons to The Lovely Bones.

#3,931  C, Tom McCarthy’s, (Knopf 9/07) —  just received a decidedly not positive review from Michiko Kakutani, NYT.

# 21,332 Parrot and Olivier in America, Peter Carey, (Knopf; 4/20) — if Carey wins, this would be his third Booker. The book reached a high of #422 on Amazon after it was released.

# 37,883  The Long Song, Andrea Levy, (FSG, 4/27) — reached a high of #9,642 — Jamaican-British author Andrea Levy also wrote Small Island, which was made into two-part series that appeared on PBS Materpiece Theater this Spring. Set in Jamaica in the 19th C, The Long Song is narrated by July, a house slave on a sugar plantation.

Not available in the U.S (UPDATE: These titles are now forthcoming)

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut

Not making the cut from the Booker long list is Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray (Faber & Faber) just released here to strong reviews. It has the highest U.S. Amazon ranking of the all the longlist titles at #134 and is currently being adapted as a film.

Also not on the list is the best-selling title in the UK (but at a lowly #11,993 on Amazon rankings here), The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, was published as an original trade paperback here by Penguin (4-27). The Australian author has made waves by calling European writers “dry and academic” as compared to Americans. The London Evening Standard called it a Slap in the Face for Popular Read.

Prior to its publication on Tuesday, Sean Wilentz’s book Bob Dylan in America has already received an enviable amount of advance attention. New York magazine featured it as the lead title in their fall books preview and it was reviewed in the major Sunday review sections.

Wilentz, a Princeton historian, has published several books on U.S. history and politics, also received a Grammy nomination for his liner notes for the Bob Dylan Live 1964 CD set and is the “historian in residence” on the Dylan web site. Wilentz explains his personal connection to Dylan in this clip from the BOT audio:

The book rose to #250 on Sunday from #461 the day before on Amazon sales rankings; library holds are light, as are orders.

Kirkus was the only library review source to cover it, with this severe warning,

The author is capable of sometimes striking and unexpected insights linking Dylan to American precursors ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Bing Crosby, but his frequently misguided ideas and oft-leaden style weigh down the proceedings.

One for the practicing Dylanologist—general readers should approach with caution.

The Sunday review sections were much more enthusiastic:

L.A. Times — “appropriate for a historian, the book is a vision of how the past becomes part of our living present.”

NYTBR; Bringing It All Back Home — “Among those who write regularly about Dylan, Wilentz possesses the rare virtues of modesty, nuance and lucidity, and for that he should be celebrated and treasured.”

Washington Post — “a book at once deeply felt and historically layered that shows how Dylan’s artistic practice is embedded in and responsive to powerful but subtle currents of American culture.”

Bob Dylan In America Sean Wilentz Retail Price: $28.95 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Doubleday – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 0385529880 / 9780385529884

Audio; Books on Tape; UNABR; 6 CD’s; 9780307714978; $40

Isabel Wilkerson made quite an impression when she spoke on the First Author/First Book panel at ALA Annual this year. Her book, which arrives next week, is also making an impression.

About the migration of African Americans to the North between 1915 and 1970, it’s on the cover of the 9/12 NYT Book Review, after already receiving attention in the daily NYT (the  daily newspaper’s book reviews and the Sunday Book Review are separate entities, with separate staffs and reporting structures; something people forget when they complain about the NYT covering the same title twice) and many other sources.

Wilkerson won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing at the NYT; this is her first book. The NYT BR says,

…written in broad imaginative strokes, this book, at 622 pages, is something of an anomaly in today’s shrinking world of nonfiction publishing: a narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future place on Oprah’s couch.

Wilkerson is aso interviewed in a podcast by NYT BR Editor Sam Tanenhaus.

The book is rising on Amazon’s sales rankings; it is now at #37.

NYT Daily — Janet Maslin

Entertainment Weekly gives it an unequivocal  A

The Economist, Black migration in America: From hominy grits to cold shoulder

New Yorker, Chronicling the Great Migration

The Wall Street Journal, The Great Northern Migration