Follow the Yellow Brick Road

From 1900 through the mid-1940s, one new title in the Oz series was published almost every year. There were 14 when Baum died. Contract writers supplied the rest. After the first three books in the series, the magical city of Oz steadily declined in storytelling energy and inventiveness, as well as the ability to enchant young readers. They were given these books anyway. Oz had become a brand-name staple for the Christmas children's book trade.

But if you went looking for the Oz books in libraries for children during the 1930s and 1940s, chances are good you wouldn't find them.

Our forerunners had it drummed into them that they must use their very limited book budgets to buy only the best among new children's books. Strings of fiction in series, especially those by contract writers, were to be ignored as unworthy tools for booting young readers up the reading ladder.

This selection dicta was often observed in the breach. No librarian worth her salt was about to pitch the Anne of Green Gables series, and libraries were buying the Little House series as fast as Harper Bros. published them. Their mistake was to postpone the restatement of their purposes and objectives and procedures as these evolved from the earliest days of library work with children.

About the time MGM's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz captivated adults and children alike, the general press discovered and attacked our pioneers' refusal to buy or promote the Oz titles. These meanies were said to be withholding the books children loved.

The Oz controversy helped fuel a long overdue revamp of library book evaluation procedures, selection policies, and purchasing practices. The Oz battle has long been recognized as children's librarians' first widespread encounter with the ways public demand can be manipulated to pressure their purchasing decisions and invade their book budgets.

Superbly organized and executed, the publisher landed the latest Potter title on front pages of newspapers across the country before and after its release and provided local TV news broadcasters with warm and fuzzy fade-outs of Potter parties held by book store chains as well as libraries. The campaign provides a pattern for corporate-owned children's book publishers to follow. Librarians can only hope the next children's book that gets this blockbuster treatment is as welcome in their collections as the Potter series. But, there were disturbing elements to the sales campaign, too.

There was a blackout on book reviews until after the newest Potter was released. This old sales ploy is usually reserved for Big Dirties of the adult book trade (such as Sex by Madonna) in order to avoid informed comment or any negative criticism.

Between the years of Baum and Rowling, librarians struggled to receive advance examination copies and timely reviews of new children's books in order to buy and help promote them. Librarians, their reviewers, and the general public all deserve better than this "I've got a secret" approach to book sales.

As planet-sized publishers prowl for profits in the wonderful world of children's books, Potter's collision with the Wizard begs for yet another hard look--for your community and especially for your suppliers--at how and why librarians buy books for young readers.

Lillian N. Gerhardt
Editor-at-Large
lgerhardt@cahners.com