Children’s Institute Take Aways
Our Kids + Teens book buyer, Melissa LaSalle, took a trip to New Orleans to learn about what’s top of mind in kids publishing.
Read on for an in-depth look at what she learned, and hear about how we’ll be implementing these observations and take aways into our new expanded children’s section - Old Town Books Junior - which is opening in September 2024!
Ally: Melissa, first of all I’m amazed by your capacity to survive (and thrive!) with all the energy and excitement of a big conference. Tell us just how much of a whirlwind was your quick trip to New Orleans for Children’s Institute last month?
Melissa: It was a jam-packed three and half days for sure! Sessions started at 7am and publisher parties went until very late–and by the end I was barely able to string coherent sentences together. I actually skipped one session on the last day because I didn’t feel like my brain was capable of absorbing one more piece of information LOL. That said, this was my first time at a children’s bookselling conference in years and it was a huge step up!
In my former life, I used to attend the now extinct BookExpo (BEA for short) which was held annually for librarians, booksellers, and publishers alike, often in the soul-sucking complex that is the Javits center in NYC. That conference was a BEAST, with thousands upon thousands of people in attendance and very little opportunities for productive dialogue and networking.
By comparison, Children’s Institute, a relatively new conference hosted by the American Booksellers Association, is geared exclusively towards indie bookstores, with only a couple hundred children’s buyers, event planners, and booksellers in attendance, alongside representatives from publishers and a few dozen star authors promoting their forthcoming titles.
I was surrounded by so many smart, like-minded people who care passionately about getting great books into kids’ hands and it made for such rich, inspiring discussions. Plus, they fed us, so we didn’t have to subsist entirely on the stacks of books we packed into our totes!
Ally: How did you spend your days there? What was the schedule like?
Melissa: Each day was a little different but generally included a combination of talks by award-winning authors, small discussion panels on timely topics and trends in the industry, publisher presentations on fall books, and a chance to pick up galleys (advance copies of books) and even get some signed by their authors. Some folks went on bus tours of local New Orleans indies, though I opted to stay back for a session on middle grade readership that ended up being a conference highlight for me (more on that below!). That said, I DID attend the opening reception at a gorgeous Black-owned indie called Baldwin & Co., located in the historic Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans and with a beautiful (and steamy!) outdoor garden, where I got to mingle and chat shop while being treated to some incredible jazz and dance performances.
Ally: Travel and crowds aside, what did you find to be grounding about being at a big learning and networking event like this? OR: What was the best part about being at the conference?
Melissa: I learned so much–my brain is overflowing with ideas and programming for our new expanded kids space this fall!--and it was such a treat to spend time in person with folks who I normally only talk to on the phone or see on Instagram.
But do you want to know what the absolute best part was if I’m being completely honest? It was the luxury of getting to focus 100% on ONE thing. As a mom, as a spouse, as someone who takes on way too many volunteer opportunities, as the keeper of my own blog and bookstagram account, I’m always trying to balance paid work with a million other demands on my time. I know you can relate! It was so nice to be able to say: OK, right now, I’m only available for this one thing; I’m filling my cup with this one thing, and bonus that it happens to be something I love so much.
Ally: I can totally relate! How wonderful to be able to really focus on wearing one hat! Was there anything from the conference that surprised you?
Melissa: It never fails to surprise me how unbelievably kind folks in this industry are–especially how generous and forthcoming they are with their time. I don’t know of many industries where you can approach someone who is essentially a competitor and they don’t hesitate to share tips from their own business successes and failures. Kid lit people are the BEST.
Ally: Who did you get to meet/hear speak that just really delighted/inspired you?
Melissa: Gah, so many people! I got to have dinner (courtesy of our pals at Simon & Schuster) with author James Ponti, who is positively delightful, hilarious, and an avid supporter of indie booksellers. Kids know and love him for his CITY SPIES series, and this fall he will launch a new series with THE SHERLOCK SOCIETY, in which four kids and one eccentric grandpa tackle a decades-old mystery in Miami. I tore through an advance copy on the plane ride down to New Orleans and am wild for it! Smart, funny, dialogue-driven, extremely fast paced: it’s exactly what today’s readers are hankering for! We got to chatting about how hard it is to grab and keep young readers’ attention these days, and he told me he credits his knack for writing such accessible, well-paced stories to his prior career as a screenwriter. He has this in common with other popular authors like Stuart Gibbs and Max Brallier, and it’s such an interesting point!
Author James Ponti (center) with Melissa (right) pondering Ponti’s next sure to be hit - The Sherlock Society.
“ I tore through an advance copy on the plane ride down to New Orleans and am wild for it! Smart, funny, dialogue-driven, extremely fast paced: it’s exactly what today’s readers are hankering for!” - Melissa
The acclaimed author Meg Medina, who’s also this year’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and the first Latina to serve in that role, gave a beautiful keynote address where she talked about booksellers as caretakers both of communities and of the individual. I love this so much. She also said that when you pitch a book to someone you are “revealing a piece of your heart.”
Finally, I swooned over Renée Watson’s talk titled “On Writing Grief and Joy for Young Readers.” I love Renée’s young middle grade series about a spunky girl named Ryan Hart, but she also writes incredible teen and adult fiction and poetry, much of which is inspired by her growing up as a Black girl in the Pacific Northwest, and wow does she have a way with words. She first read from her forthcoming 2025 release, ALL THE BLUES IN THE SKY, a novel in verse about a girl recoiling from the death of her best friend. Afterwards, she spoke about the importance of readers being able to experience a spectrum of emotional truths on the page: that joy and sorrow often exist side by side, and that kids as much as adults are capable of holding multiple emotions at the same time. “I write not so children can escape reality but so they can cope with it,” she said. Then later: “I hope we do right by our children such that they will never deny their pain.” There was not a dry eye in the room when she finished.
“I hope we do right by our children such that they will never deny their pain.” - Author Renée Watson at Children’s Institute.
Ally: Wow that sounds amazing! What was a common thread you heard among booksellers at the conference? Every indie bookstore is different by nature, but I’m sure there were similarities, too? Challenges faced, opportunities, goals?
Melissa: Ummm, am I allowed to say that there was much collective grumbling about parents getting in the way of what their kids want to read? I certainly see this at our shop as well, and I say this as a parent myself, who has often had to work very, very hard not to pass judgment on what my own kids prefer to read (too silly, too easy, too visual, too whatever): at a time when kids are struggling more than ever to choose reading in their free time–14% of thirteen year olds report reading for fun, down from 39% in 1990!–we have got to set aside our own ideas of what good reading looks like and let kids get that all-important confidence and momentum from reading what brings them joy. Hard stop.
Ally: What was the most helpful or impactful professional development session or author talk you attended? Why is that?
Melissa: Hands down the best session was the Middle Grade Market Analysis, where booksellers and publishers came together to dialogue about an alarming decline in middle grade sales across the industry. Reading for fun has been proven to be the single biggest indicator of a child’s happiness; and yet, we are experiencing an unprecedented and heartbreaking drop in kids doing just that.
Part of this decline is related to stamina: many of today’s kids struggle to stay with a book long enough to get into it, owing to cultural shifts like screen use, overscheduling, and an intentional move to favor shorter passages over whole novels in school curriculums. But part of this is also that the publishing industry has been slow to pivot into giving today’s kids what they want and need: lower page count, shorter chapters, more visuals, more fun, more lightness to combat an increasingly heavy world. The good news is that owing to more thoughtful discourse on this topic, change is now quickly happening with authors, publishers, and booksellers alike. I fervently believe that bookstores are positioned to be real leaders in this space, curating relevant collections, educating parents, and inspiring kids to seek out stories as a venue to creativity and connection.
Ally: What’s one thing from the conference you think will impact your book buying at Old Town Books Junior?
Melissa: All this talk of how do we get kids to fall in love with reading (again) has me fired up to design and fill shelves at Junior that are full to the brim with kid appeal. As soon as we were in the preliminary talks for Junior, I knew that I wanted to pay careful attention to the way we categorized middle grade and YA, and Children’s Institute only solidified my plan: whereas most stores shelve all middle grade books together, we are going to have one section for Elementary Readers and another for Tweens. We’re going to have a section for Young Teens that will pull out some of the younger YA, since YA now covers an overwhelmingly broad range of maturity levels. I don’t want kids to have to work to find things that are right for and appeal to them! I want to have shelf talkers for kids to share their own reviews with other shoppers! I want to carry more graphic novels and make kids feel good about loving them! I want to do more fun reading challenges like our summer Bingo board! I want to get kids in front of authors! I want to do parent education nights dedicated to what we can do at home to nurture a love of reading! I’m grateful that we will have such a great time to implement all these ideas.
Ally: Melissa I really could not be more excited to roll out all these great ideas and changes at Old Town Books Junior. It is such a joy to work with you, to see your passion passed on to so many new readers. Thank you!
Melissa: Thanks, Ally, not just for this interview but for believing in me, prioritizing professional development, and sending me to the Big Easy for such a fun time!
Looking for some book suggestions for your own young reader? Don’t miss our Summer Reading Guide for Kids + Teens out now!
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