Neil Gaiman and the Disappearing Newbery Seal
An upcoming cover for The Graveyard Book (the edition aimed at the adult market), has no Newbery seal. Completely gone. Not even a mention. Publishers Weekly recently ran a interesting article about this decision.
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My first reaction? It’s like the Collecting Children’s Books April Fools post from a couple years ago came true.
Here are few random thoughts:
1. I’ve never considered the idea that the Newbery seal might deter adults from selecting a book to read, but I can see it. The award definitely marks a book as “for kids”.
2. While I’m slightly offended that a publisher would choose to remove all signs of an award that is near and dear to me, I have to smile thinking about Gaiman’s publisher in effect saying “Nah, we’re good” to this highly-coveted award.
The third and fourth thoughts are questions for you:
3. Do you think this is a good idea?
4. Could you imagine this sort of thing with any other Newbery-winning book/author?
Bonus fifth thought:
5. Are there any members of the Newbery committee who awarded The Graveyard Book out there? Is removing mention of the award a slight, or is all fair in book covery?
Filed under: Articles
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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Hmmmm… see I always thought the opposite was true – that the Newbery Award attracted adults and deterred kids. So often kids won’t read a book if it won the Newbery because they associate Newbery books with stories that are too difficult and/or boring to follow. At least that’s my experience as a teacher anyway.
That’s a good point. The Newbery is always a draw to adults looking to recommend books to kids, which I think we can all agree is a noble pursuit. But how does it affect adults (outside of the library/education field) who are just looking for something good to read? Is it that the Newbery marks it as for kids, or is it that adults remember Newbery winners from their childhood and are somehow turned off?
I agree with Beth S. Once, I had to beg a 6th grade boy to read Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet. He was very suspicious of the silver sticker. I finally convinced him to check it out and he loved it, but it took a good deal of negotiating!
Your experience of the seal being a direct turn-off for kids is interesting – I haven’t really experienced that (or at least where a student admitted it!).
Might it be as simple as getting the book shelved with his others to raise awareness of it among his core fan base? Gaiman didn’t become a star by virtue of having won the Newbery. He already had an enormous following.
I agree with you, Cynthia – while the Newbery often makes stars of a lesser-known writers, Gaiman was already hugely popular when he won. This edition will make it more visible for his adult fans. Not putting the seal front and center makes sense for what they were trying to accomplish, but it is interesting that there is not even a mention of the award on the book (at least that’s what the PW article says).
Actually. This isn’t a first. The newer adult cover for The Hero and the Crown is sans Newbery as well(the one with the stone horse). I think Newbery encourages adults like us who already love children’s, but I also have friends that I think would love these books but are more likely to read them with the updated covers and the lack of the award.
I was hoping someone could let us know if this sort of thing has happened before – thanks Stephanie!
In my system lots of teen librarians leave the stickers off Newb titles that are shelved in the teen collection, for the same reasons mentioned earlier… these titles include Graveyard, When you reach me, Criss Cross, etc. I was a little sad this last year when Heart of a Samurai was Honor Medal-less, but I do understand the reasoning (what I *don’t* understand is why that book is in our teen section to begin with…)
Hmm – that’s pretty interesting, Sam. Working in K-6 students, I haven’t run into this sort of thing very often. From the sound of it, leaving the Newbery off is more common than I would have thought.