June 1998

Staff -- School Library Journal, 6/1/1998

Audiobooks -- and SLJ -- are on the pedagogical cutting edge, says a reader.

Listen and Learn

We are thrilled with Kylene Beers's article, "Listen While You Read: Struggling Readers & Audiobooks" (pp. 30-35) in April's SLJ. Audiobooks are a huge issue with educators -- we talk with hundreds of educators at the national and regional educational conferences we're focusing on this year, and they are desperately seeking information on this "new" teaching tool. Beers's article couldn't be more timely to fill that information need and give this tool the credibility it needs with many teachers.

The two teachers who called this morning to request our free Teacher's Guide/Catalog have both recently received grant dollars to purchase audiobooks for their schools -- both told me the SLJ article has justified their efforts and defines those efforts as being cutting edge and current. Very exciting to have this support from SLJ for both educators and publishers alike.

Spread the Word

Loved your editorial, "Call Waiting: An April Fool's Fantasy" (April 1998, p. 5). It should be sent to every publisher, magazine, and newspaper in this country.

More Bang for the Book Buck

Lillian N. Gerhardt concludes her editorial "Average Book Prices '98" (March 1998, p. 79) with the admonition "...you need to spend the [book] money wisely." Earlier in the editorial she says, "As nearly as I can determine from children's book publishers, most give wholesalers a quantity discount of about 50 percent. Thus, a title listed at $16 costs the wholesaler about $8. The wholesalers can jack up their asking prices to the suggested list price or beyond. Libraries are stuck with the now-you-see-it, now-you-don't short discount on titles the publishers claim are bound in library or reinforced uniform trade bindings. (It's a long-running bad joke on libraries, considering the fragility of these bindings)."[emphasis mine] Various divisions -- PLA, AASL, ALSC -- of the ALA have had 30 to 40 years to establish binding standards for so-called "library or reinforced" bindings. I believe schools have done it for textbooks they buy; why haven't we tried to get full value for the dollars we spend on children's books? What is the explanation? We are being robbed and don't seem to care.

Correction

The publisher of Karen Hesse's The Music of Dolphins is Scholastic, not Holt ("Having Their Say: How to Lead Great Book Discussions with Children," April 1998, p. 28).