Children’s Book Council Looks Ahead to 2009

Bill Tancer, author of Click (Hyperion), was the featured speaker at Wednesday's CBC annual meeting.

In the 2008 annual meeting of the Children’s Book Council, held on Wednesday, September 24, executive director Robin Adelson called the CBC “dynamic,” noting the increased activity during the previous year is “a sign of things to come.” The CBC has gone “back to basics,” she stated; the staff has been reorganized, and the sales of printed materials have been discontinued, resulting in a profit for the first time in years, of more than $90,000 for the fiscal year that ended in June 2008. 

CBC chair Suzanne Murphy reviewed the highlights of the previous year, including the naming of the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, in conjunction with the Library of Congress; holding two Children’s Book Weeks within six months of each other (to move the official week into May, going forward); reactivating the Every Child a Reader program run by the CBC Foundation, which is chaired by Lori Benton; continuing and expanding initiatives such as the co-sponsoring of bibliographies; overhauling the CBC Web site, and growing the Early Career Committee, aimed at younger publishing staff.