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Both John Mendelson and Nosy Crow books were longtime fixtures at Candlewick Press — John as sales director and Nosy Crow as an imprint of smart UK picture books. Here they are together again, with John as president of Nosy Crow Inc., established in Lincoln, Massachusetts, as a branch of Nosy Crow UK just one year ago.
After about thirteen years of distributing Gecko Press books from New Zealand, the Lerner Publishing Group acquired Gecko late last year, naming Rachel Lawson, formerly Gecko Press associate publisher, as publisher at large to oversee acquisitions for the imprint. I talk with Rachel below about her history with Gecko and her plans for its future.
InBuilt to Last, their fourth collaboration, authorMinh Lêand illustratorDan Santatexplore the nature of collaboration itself as two boys, looking suspiciously like their makers, create and destroy and create again. Art imitating life?
While I knew from the title page that Gut Reaction had two authors, I did not know they were next-door neighbors, not to mention mother (Kirby Larson) and daughter (Quinn Wyatt)! Kirby and Quinn collaborated on this novel about a middle schooler, Tess, who at first suffers alone with an embarrassing, painful, and debilitating condition that she (along with readers) comes to understand is Crohn’s disease, an illness Quinn knows firsthand.
Writer and librarian Vaunda Micheaux Nelson has made something of a specialty of bringing hitherto under-recognized African American heroes into prominence. In Small Shoes, Great Strides: How Three Brave Girls Opened Doors to School Equality, Nelson and illustrator Alex Bostic celebrate three very young heroes — first graders — in the fight to desegregate a New Orleans public school in 1960.