Booksellers Tell Us—Which Children's Book Themes Are Being Requested?

About a year ago, I wrote a blog entry where librarians shared children's book themes that were still being requested. Curious about what local bookstores had to say, I decided to conduct a similar survey. The results were surprisingly different. Three out of six booksellers, including Skylight Books (LA), Barnes and Noble Bookstar (Studio City), and Flintridge Bookstore (La Cañada/Flintridge), believed that authors and the children's publishing industry were doing a great job of representing a variety of genres, cultures, and themes. Continue reading to learn what the others had to say.

A Barnes and Noble Americana (Glendale) bookseller expressed the need for young baby pop-up books similar to the Pop-up Peekaboo! Series by Penguin Random House. Additionally, she requested more Native American picture books and young readers' historical fiction similar to Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales series by Abram's Books and the I Survived series by Lauren Tarshis and Scholastic.

I checked in with Vromans (Pasadena), and the bookseller there commented on the great variety of cultural books creators are writing and hopes for even more diverse representation in art in all picture books and topics, including stories with familiar themes.

Finally, the San Marino Toy and Book Shoppe representative mentioned that no significant categories seemed lacking; instead, particular requests came in from parents for very specific circumstances. However, the staff did have a recent conversation about preschool titles and the theme of making friends. Just as I thought, yes!, ANZU AND THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP satisfies that category; she clarified the age range—not elementary level—but younger and without animals! Apparently, preschool friendship characters are often represented by animals. 

I am grateful for all the booksellers who took the time to chat with me! All in all, publishers and authors seem to be doing their best to create stories in a diverse range of books! If you are a parent, guardian, grandparent, or teacher, please share if you feel that there are gaps in picture book categories, themes or genres for kids. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

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