What's Selling Now: Robert Brown

You maybe also plan your vacations around places to visit that have awesome bookstores? One of my dream roadtrips involves a stop at Books, Bytes, & Beyond in New Jersey, and Robert Brown is one of the reasons it's such a great, independent bookstore. Now Bob is shining up Scholastic Book Fairs, get to know him a little with Martha's great, pre-conference interview.

My favorite part of Bob's intro: How important it is to him to help children find the books that are right for them. Bob did this at his bookstore, and now with Scholastic he helps 35 million (!) kids via school book fairs find thousands of fiction and nonfiction titles.

Bob's answers to some of Lin's bookish questions:

Lin asks the panel to take the market's temperature:

Bob is upbeat about the children's book publishing industry. The biggest challenge is to get kids to read more. The book fairs provide unfettered access for kids to be in direct contact with new books, not only the bestseller listers, but wonderful midlist titles as well. In addition, it's a community event, families come to the fairs and the events continue to be well attended, with robust sales and enthusiasm on all sides.

How are Scholastic Book Fairs getting into the electronic book world?

Bob recommends checking out Scholastic's Storia, an app for Windows, iPads and Android designed for kids learning to read as well as readers and parents looking for a a curated set of great books.

Dream book type for Scholastic Book Fairs?

Contemporary multicultural!