Book Sense Introduces Revamped Children's Bestsellers List

Looking to better represent the nature of children's bookselling and publishing, Book Sense has revamped its Children's Bestsellers List [1] by breaking out bestsellers into three categories: "Children's Interest," "Illustrated," and "Series Fiction."

"The Book Sense Bestseller lists have become a real barometer of what is selling well in Book Sense stores," said Meg Smith [2], ABA's associate director of Book Sense Marketing. "We feel it is important to keep all the bestseller lists reflective of the marketplace, and so the changes to the children's list -- the addition of the 'Fiction Series' list and the new 'Children's Interest' -- really do just that. We also hope that independent bookstores find them useful. I'm anxious to get feedback from the stores who, after all, use the lists for in-store marketing, as well as for buying information."

Smith explained that the previous categorization of "Children's Fiction" and "Children's Illustrated" no longer represented the nature of children's publishing. The past few years have seen an "enormous growth in the number of fiction series," she explained, most likely prompted by the overwhelming success of series like Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. "Since stand-alone fiction or nonfiction titles and series titles were becoming two different animals, we decided to give them each their own showcase," she said.

The new "Children's Interest" bestseller list will encompass both fiction and nonfiction, while the "Children's Series Fiction" list will include top-selling series, such as Ann Brashares' The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which ranks Number One on this week's Series Fiction list.

Comments about the Book Sense Bestseller Lists should be addressed to Smith at meg@booksense.com [3] or (800) 637-0037, ext. 1239.