The Lerner Blog

I’ve told all of you before how I compulsively read everything—even the packaging for various products I have lying around at home. Well, one thing I see all the time on packaging that makes me want to tear my hair out is the claim that a product is “100% all natural.” AUUGGH! If something’s 100% […]Read more "Copywriting Fail"

Did you catch kidlit agent (and editor of more award winning books than you can shake a stick at) Brenda Bowen on Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me a couple weekends ago? I’ve been listening to that show since I was in high school, and rarely have the panelists irritated me more than they did in […]Read more "Harder than you think"

The planets must have aligned on April 16th. For some unknown reason, a number of comic convention and festivals were held across the country on that day. In The Bronx we had Kid’s Comic Con, attended by our own Carol Burrell, Colleen AF Venable and Yuko Ota. In Portland, Oregon was Stumptown Comics Fest, one […]Read more "Wish You Were Here"

Here at Lerner, we talk a lot about the importance of cover designs in attracting both fiction and nonfiction readers. One of my favorite recent TFCB covers, for example, is Mass Extinction (Discovery! series, cover below). The cover hits all the key elements of a stylish design: elegance, simplicity, and what fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent […]Read more "Attracted by Design"

I admired Jane Brocket’s photographs long before we began working together on her lovely (and clever!) series of children’s books. She has quite a collection of photos to draw from as she creates her books. However, there are times when just the right photo doesn’t yet exist. I’ve blogged before about the cover design process […]Read more "The Photo That Didn’t Go As Planned"

Although Lerner Publications is a photo-driven imprint, we have several illustrators who create spot art for certain series. One of those illustrators is UK-based artist Colin W. Thompson, who did the expressive and whimsical line art for Is That a Fact? Here’s just a small sampling of what Colin did for the series: These books […]Read more "Artful Illustrations"

I must apologize. All of my social networking energy has gone into troubling deaf heaven, asking why Minnesota has more than its fair share of elected nutjobs and why same nutjobs are mucking about in my world. (As you can see from my Facebook, my pleading began very early this morning.) Plus, yesterday I blogged […]Read more "Bootless cries"

Great news for the kids who will be attending the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend. Colleen AF Venable, the fantastic author of the highly entertaining series Guinea PIG, Pet Shop Private Eye will be making an appearance and participating in an array of kid events there. Colleen will speak on a book design panel […]Read more "TCAF and a YALSA Nomination"

The world’s attention is focused on the news of the killing of Osama bin Laden. Below are links that offer more information about some of the things people are talking about and the questions they are asking:   The assault on the not-so-secret compound. How did it transpire? What forces carried out the attack? Meet […]Read more "Dead"