Episode 14: A Commitment to Representation

In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers podcast, Margot Sage-EL interviews Arthur Levine about his prolific career in children’s publishing.

Arthur A. Levine is the founder of the independent publisher Levine Querido. His determination to bring a diverse selection of "The Best of the World's Literature for Young People" to American readers introduced great writers such as J. K. Rowling, Markus Zusak, Luis Sepúlveda, and Jaclyn Moriarty. LQ’s publication of Newbery honorees Daniel Nayeri, Darcie Little Badger, and Donna Barba Higuera, author Cat Min, and Printz, Stonewall and Sydney Taylor award winner Sacha Lamb continues the tradition. 

Margot Sage-EL, owner emeritus of Watchung Booksellers, has decades of bookselling and publishing experience and works to cultivate the bookstore as a welcoming home to everyone.

Resources:
Bluestone
Ursula Nordstorm
Editor George Nicholson 
Patty Gauch
Suzanne Murphy
Phyllis Fogelman
Atha Tehon
Leo and Diane Dillion
Verna Aardema

Books:
A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here.

Register for Upcoming Events.

The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ.

The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss.

Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica.

Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff.

Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids’ Room!

If you liked our episode please like, follow, and share!

Stay in touch!
Email: wbpodcast@watchungbooksellers.com
Social: @watchungbooksellers

Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest on our shows, events, and book recommendations!

Transcript

Kathryn: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Watchung Booksellers podcast. I'm Kathryn and I'm here with Marni. Hey Marni. Hi. What are you reading on this sweltering summer day? 

Marni: June and I will soon be reading the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So we're super excited, but we're also very sad that the series is coming to an end.

Kathryn: Yeah, it was a good one. 

Marni: Yeah, how about you? 

Kathryn: Well, since today we are featuring a conversation with someone who is a children's publishing expert, I thought I would read something from The Kids Room. And so I picked up a copy of The Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Molloy, which is the book that the young readers are reading for their book club.

Kathryn: It's a middle grade fantasy adventure about a young girl whose baby brother is stolen by crows. and taken into the mysterious forest in her town, and she has to save him. And our booksellers Evelyn and Caroline, who also work on this show, run the book club, and they make it so much fun. So if you have a kid in the age 12 year old range, have them sign up to join the reading party.

Marni: Well, that leads us to today's conversation with publisher Arthur Levine and Margot Sage-EL, who have known each other for many, many years, as Arthur is one of our most dedicated customers. Arthur A. Levine is a resident of Montclair who founded the independent publisher Levine Carito in April 2019. His determination to bring a diverse selection of the best of the world's literature for young people to American readers was the defining principle in all his publishing since its beginning and continues to be the guiding light at Levine Querido.

Marni: This mission resulted in the introduction to North American audiences of the work of great writers such as J. K. Rowling, Marcus Susack, and others. Louise Sepulveda, and Jacqueline Moriarty. LQ's award winning publication of Newbery honorees is available now. Daniel Neary, Darcy Little Badger, and Donna Barbara Higuera, author artist Kat Min, and Prince Stonewall, and Sidney Taylor award winning Sasha Lamb continues the tradition.

Marni: He sees the search for great writers from around the world as a continuum with Levine Carito's search for diverse, powerful, unique voices and visions from the multitude of cultures closer to home. 

Kathryn: And Margot Sage-EL, owner emeritus of Watchung Booksellers, has decades of bookselling and publishing experience herself.

Kathryn: Her commitment to literacy and offering books that represented all people Helped build a bookstore that is a cornerstone of 

Marni: Montclair and a welcoming home to everybody. Enjoy the conversation and we'll be back after to fill you in on what's coming up in the store.

Margot: Hi Arthur. Are you Margot? Yes, I'm Margot. Thank you so much for coming. This is a real thrill since the beginning. We have known each other many, many years. So long that I don't even know when you first came upon the scene at the bookstore and moving to Montclair. 

Arthur: So, I actually think that I knew you and Watchung booksellers before I moved to Montclair.

Arthur: Because I kind of had this thing of wherever I was going to live, I had to be in walking distance of a diner, and a bookstore, and a train. And a 

Margot: train, yep. 

Arthur: So. 

Margot: Wait, which diner though? Was that Bluestone? Yeah. Yeah. That was great. 

Arthur: Totally does belong there. Whatever I need to on a weekend morning. 

Margot: I also went to try to find my home, although I didn't have the, the bookstore was not there then, but I wanted to live somewhere where I could live without a car if I needed to.

Margot: And everything was there at Watchung Plaza. Right. And then I put the bookstore there, or the bookstore cave. Yes. So then we had everything that we needed. But that's so great. Yeah. So it was really exciting. So you have an amazing, amazing career in publishing. 

Arthur: Thanks. 

Margot: And I mean, also, well, I want to talk about how you got into publishing, but just to give you.

Margot: Like credit for, as an editor, finding amazing authors. 

Arthur: Thank 

Margot: you. And in just looking over your work, I was very pleased to see that you were the editor for Gloria and Buckle. I mean, 

Arthur: Officer Buckle and Gloria. Yes, for sure. Was that one 

Margot: of your first? editorial books? Or was that? Oh, 

Arthur: no, that was already like, I started in 1984 as an assistant to Margaret Frith at the Putnam, what was called then the Putnam and Grosset Group.

Arthur: And I started in publishing, almost straight out of college. I did a little six week tour of the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures course. Wow. And then I got my first job and I guess I had been working probably eight or so years before I started my second run at Putnam. What do you 

Margot: mean your second run?

Margot: Well, 

Arthur: like I started at Putnam and then I went to Dial and I worked there for a couple of years and I was totally done with the industry. I was like, Ugh. I just can't stand this. It's like, why am I gonna put up with, like, such an environment when I'm not even making any money? Well, yeah, people were mean and it was, you know, yeah, it was just, it was all about personality conflicts, I think.

Arthur: And Margaret Frith called me up and said, Hey, Maybe it'll make a difference. Like, don't go. I had this whole plan. I was going to move to Boston. I had, you know, three months money saved up. I was going to write in the little Garrett, you know, 

Margot: totally, totally romantic. It was really 

Arthur: romantic. But then Margaret called me and said, maybe it isn't publishing.

Arthur: Maybe it's, You know, maybe it's just the environment where you are and don't you owe it to yourself. Come back here and be with people who love you. And if it makes a difference, then it makes a difference. And if not, then you haven't lost anything. 

Margot: Right. Very wise. So that's the talent. Yeah. Well then let's go back to, which I always, Find interesting, you know, why children's books and what children's books influenced you.

Margot: Oh, wow. Yeah, like not to be, not necessarily to become a children's editor, because I don't know if when you're a child, you have no idea that that even exists. Yeah, I did not. But still, the books that, 

Arthur: Well, I mean, I think that books in general got me through because I was a kid. I had leg perthes, you know, when I was in second grade and I was in a wheelchair for a while and I was kind of on the outside.

Arthur: I was an outsider and I was a smart kid, you know, in a, in a land where that was not a cool thing. Uh, so. I think everyone who's like that has like a story of how books, you know, were their retreat. 

Margot: Yeah, you retreat, they save you, they open up worlds that you might not ever encounter because you're so quiet and odd, but Here you live this world while you're reading the book and imagine it.

Arthur: And you find people, like you find people who, even if you feel like the only one in the world of something. Right. Like Meg in Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. You know, like this really smart girl who's like the hero of the story. And I just loved how smart it was. And, you know, E. L. Konigsberg and people who wrote, I'm saying smart characters, you know.

Arthur: But not only that, you know, I, I love A. A. Mill and I loved Russell Hoban. Um, and basically if I'd known enough to, you know, Go out and meet Ursula Nordstrom at Harper and Row. I would have told her, look, you're publishing all the books I love. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: Sendak and Lopel. And those are the, those are the books that, that meant the most to me.

Arthur: And I definitely consciously. Thought about that when I was trying to choose, um, what part of publishing. Right. First, I knew books, but then it was like, well, what part of publishing? Right. Like, what books meant the most to you? Had a lasting impact. 

Margot: Right. 

Arthur: And I really felt that that was the books from my childhood.

Arthur: And both for what did connect with me and did get me through, and both what I was lacking. 

Margot: The choices were so limited back then. 

Arthur: Oh yeah. 

Margot: When we were coming up, they were beautiful books, but they didn't always reflect the reality of that. We were all living and you have wholeheartedly embraced this and brought this.

Margot: Well, it brought, you did. You did bring this mission through your other publishing jobs, but I 

Arthur: definitely did. 

Margot: With your own publishing company, Levine Corrido, you have totally embraced this. It's not just a passing fad. It's not just because, what does it bring diverse books into publishing? It was, this is you and your, the lists of the books that you've published are amazing in that respect.

Arthur: Thank you. Yeah, I mean in 

Margot: many respects, but I appreciate 

Arthur: that a lot. But it definitely comes like, we're getting into why, why is that, why is LQ that way in the right way? Because, you know, I'm Jewish, uh, I have some disabilities, I'm gay. These are things that I didn't. I didn't read about until I was an adult, you know, I never didn't read a character.

Arthur: I never read about two boys falling in love. I had no idea how that was supposed to work. 

Margot: There was no such book. 

Arthur: There was literally no such book. And so I'm acutely aware of what that means. I mean, it wasn't as if I couldn't find things to identify because like you might say, well, love is love. And 

Margot: yeah, 

Arthur: I definitely read that.

Arthur: Read about love in forms that weren't exactly my own. But there's also something that gives you the message that you don't really count. You know, like if you're always having to project yourself onto something rather than having it be a more of a reflection, it's alienating. And that was, has been my mission throughout.

Arthur: My publishing life, the queer part of it, I didn't really start to do, get to do until the mid to late, the late nineties. Right. So I'd already been in publishing for 15 years and I would never have brought up a book to an acquisitions committee that was like overtly yay. And in fact, a woman, Warned me specifically, don't bring up anything gay here or you'll get in the 90s.

Arthur: Wow. And that was, you know, because of the, there was a lot of fuss about Jackie Woodson's book Maison, last summer with Maison. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: And truly that did change. That completely changed. Right. Because of the publishing of Am I Blue? Right. By, you know, Harper Collins and George Nicholson and, and that then showed corporate publishers that they could make a profit on a book with gay people in it, which, you know, that's the name of the game in, in corporate publishing.

Arthur: Right. So I was able to kind of like, I'm going to have to say, I'm sort of saying sneak in. I don't really, I really actually do mean that. I kind of feel like I Well, you 

Margot: also had the stature at that point. Right. The reputation you could like sort of slide it across the table. 

Arthur: Even in, you know, but even at Putnam in the, in the eighties, I was able to do it.

Arthur: You know, I published Gary Soto and. Oh, I didn't know you published 

Margot: Gary 

Arthur: Soto. I did all of his picture books when he started to do picture books and Chato's Kitchen. Each of his manuscripts, I tried to find a Latine illustrator for it, which was not a thing so much then, but like Susan Guevara, Stephanie Garcia, I just found a lot of great 

Margot: artists 

Arthur: that way.

Arthur: And that's sort of, Eloise Greenfield actually taught me that a little bit 

Margot: from when I 

Arthur: was at Dial. That's 1987. And I was publishing a book called Night on Neighborhood Street, her book of poems. And she was very insistent that we choose a Black illustrator. And I talked to her about it. And she said, look, it's not that a non Black illustrator couldn't illustrate these poems, but if I don't insist, then mainstream publishing will not make a space.

Arthur: And I was like, well, that is really cool. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna follow that, Eloise. Um, so. 

Margot: That's great. Not to jump around so much, but. You also, in your storied career, you, I don't know, do you call it discovered? I mean, you brought Golden Compass to the U. S. Right. Is that, was it the same as with Harry Potter that you founded at Bologna?

Margot: At the, it 

Arthur: was a little bit. A little bit different. Okay. Um, each of the ones, each of my big fantasy, I've, you know, I have had a couple of big fantasy hits. 

Margot: Right. 

Arthur: Like, I was the first reader of Brian Jake's of Redwall at Putnam. Wow. And when Patti Gauche had just gotten there, and it was sent to Putnam, not Philomel.

Margot: Okay. 

Arthur: And because I was the editorial assistant, I read it. And I was like, Margaret, we've got to publish this. This is so great. And she's like, yeah, that's just not really, that's really not our kind of book. I said, well, can I give it to Patti? And she said, sure. So I gave it to Patti Gouch and Patti Gouch was like, yes, let's do this.

Arthur: And so she made the whole series, but that was how that one went with the story of Philip Pullman was a little different because he was, What you'd call a mid list author. Like for many years he published some really lovely books at Knopf that were, you know, modest. They were modest successes. I loved them.

Arthur: Were 

Margot: they all? Sally 

Arthur: Lockhart, Mysteries. Oh, 

Margot: right. Um. Okay, so they weren't fantasy. 

Arthur: Yeah, they weren't, they weren't fantasy. They were mysteries. He could do anything, Philip Pullman. I love these, and these were terrible. Just, you know, he's like, yeah, Philip Holman. And he sent in this book and I just happened to have just recently gotten to Knopf as editor in chief then.

Arthur: And I said, Oh my God, this is a horse of a different color. You know, this is a really, really big. And again, the way corporate publishing works is that you have to point to a different book. You can't just say, Oh, this is a great book. Right. And so I comped. Redwall. Because I could claim, like, look, this was partly my judgment.

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: You have to trust me. And you should trust me because of this. Right. And that was a big hit. Suzanne Murphy was the marketing manager on that. She was the first person to suggest doing an ARC. No, a young adult novel had never gotten an ARC before. They were these like trashy Xeroxed kind of garbage.

Arthur: Yeah. And she's like, let's do an ARC. We did an ARC that had a three quarter jacket. Wait, just, 

Margot: just to let people know, ARC is the Advanced Reader's 

Arthur: Copy. And it's like a, it's like a paperback. You print it. Paperback 

Margot: version. 

Arthur: Yeah. 

Margot: And it's an almost finished manuscript except for a sign. Line editing or whatever.

Arthur: It's designed. It's, you know, got the cover. It looks very much like it should be a paperback. You're right. It might change a little. 

Margot: Yeah, but it, it allows people in the industry to really see how special a book is. 

Arthur: Right. And we got great quotes. And like, I wrote a letter at the beginning, like all these stuff that things like, yeah, that happens all the time, but Suzanne Murphy was the first person to suggest that, and it really, it really, It made a big difference, and that book was Extraordinary.

Arthur: So yeah, I got to kind of draft off that a little bit. 

Margot: Well, it's interesting because I see like the pattern I see between Redwall, Golden Compass, and of course your ever so famous Harry Potter is that these were all incredibly smart books. There was no dumbing down. The vocabulary was fantastic. The storylines were complex and yet, I mean, these were not traditionally books that they would read.

Margot: People thought kids would read and yet you gave these to the kids and they devoured them. 

Arthur: Yeah, 

Margot: and it's amazing I mean, I think you really changed publishing YA publishing. I know, you know, S. E. Hinton was No, it's the mother of YA, but you brought quality books 

Arthur: I definitely always believe that there's no such thing as a generic 10 year old.

Arthur: Like when, I'm sure you get this in the store all the time. You know, somebody saying, you know, I need a great book for a 10 year old. Like that is almost meaningless. Like what 10 year old? You have to get more into it. What is your 10 year old like? What was the last book they liked? And so, for me I just, I don't, age recommendations are just like, so generalized and so I don't, I don't believe it.

Arthur: Like, I know what I, I know what I genuinely loved when I was a kid and I, I believe that there are all kinds of kids who, I don't think I'm unique, you know. In fact, it's, it's My taste has never been so like, you know, just that one nerdy Jewish queer boy in Queens, you know, like clearly I share taste with a lot of, a lot of people like really, really wonderful books and I've always believed that.

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: You know, and people always forget the way that mythologies work in publishing is that people forget how things came about. And when I was trying to acquire J. K. Rowling, I literally had somebody in the elevator say to me, I was just describing the book and she said, I don't think you should go anywhere near that, you know, which is no magic, you know, it's just not the time.

Arthur: And I don't think you were, were you a bookseller in 1997? I 

Margot: actually went with our bookseller, Diane Francios, to the Scholastic Party to introduce Harry Potter. And I remember J. K. Rowling, you know, it was whatever dinner party and she was sitting there. I guess somebody told her it was time to read the book.

Margot: And she goes, well, if I have too many gin and tonics, I won't be able to read this book. So I might as well read it. So it was like nothing we had ever seen before. And Diane came back to the bookstore and every kid who came in, she handed the book to them and said, you have to read this. Like, yes, it's witches.

Margot: Yes, it's war. I mean, but it was. her pressing the book into every kid's hand. It was amazing. 

Arthur: Absolutely what it was. It was the independence, making that hand sell. Um, because also, I just want to step back for a second, cause I don't know if you remember, but in the year prior, um, someone had asked you what most booksellers were saying is that there really isn't a market for hardcover fiction.

Arthur: There just isn't one. And that's what people were telling me. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: You know, when I was going to acquire that, I'm like, you know what? I just don't believe it. You know, we're going to, we're going to put this book out and the thought, I mean, to be fair, like I had the great thing about Scholastic at that time was that Gene Fiwell and Barbara Marcus.

Arthur: We're all about giving me, like, they just hired me. They're like, Oh, we hired him. Let's let him do his thing. And also Barbara and Jean were able to say, look, you know what? We'll sell some copies, sell some, we'll sell some to the libraries, the independents, and then we'll do it. It'll have a nice life in, in the clubs and the fairs.

Arthur: And well, you know, eventually, eventually we'll make back that money. Wow. Which not every company would have been able to say, but the fact was there was, you know, there was a market for, you know, the fact that something, isn't selling can never be attributed to something as broad as it's format. You know, like hardcover fiction isn't selling.

Arthur: Like, you know, it's hardcover fiction covers a huge, huge range of things anyway, but I always remember that now. 

Margot: I have to say from the consumer's point of view, because I do remember Obviously, it was a financial thing. People thought, you know, you will, you get a hardcover classic to give as a gift to a child, but just for their everyday reading, you're not going to give a hardcover.

Margot: But the kids were asking for it. And the parents, like, you don't say no to your child when they're asking for a book. 

Arthur: Well, and also, I deliberately made that book, um, look very special. That was not a thing also that was being done. With the little 

Margot: illustrations. The little illustrations that had 

Arthur: gone out of favor.

Margot: Yeah. Yeah. Especially for that age level. 

Arthur: Right. Uh, the little illustrations at the top of the chapters for those who are listening. But we printed the jacket on an uncoated paper and we used foil to make it. Was it 

Margot: also a little embossed? It was textured. It felt, 

Arthur: yeah, it had, it had that, that texture. I mean, there was embossing and, and varnish, you know, we, we did it all on that.

Arthur: And we, I, I'm pretty sure that we had a cloth three piece case, cloth binding in the initial one and really good paper. And in the years that followed, people would tell me, Oh, nobody notices that stuff. People don't care. And yet what you just said a minute ago was that people were willing to spend the money as a gift, as a classic.

Arthur: So to me, it followed that if you showed people, this is a classic. You know, right from day one. I didn't know, I don't have crystal ball, I didn't know it would become a classic, but I felt it was. That was my reading experience. And so I wanted to make the book look that way. And in the arc, people have pointed out to me that I actually told people before it was published, you're going to, Do you want to give this to the next person who you know will love it, or do you want to keep it?

Arthur: You know, because this is an important moment, you know. 

Margot: That's 

Arthur: great. Of course, like, that was kind of ballsy and, you know, 99 out of 100 times one would say that, you'd be wrong, but I actually also have never said it. And since I don't say that about every book, I say stuff that is very specific about the book when I write a letter, which is rare.

Arthur: Cause if you do it on everything anyway, so that's me and fantasy for sure. 

Margot: Yeah. I 

Arthur: always loved fantasy as a child. I love Tolkien. I love science fiction. I love Dune. So for me, that goes to Pullman, Rowling, Daniel José Older, you know, Ursula Lipton, all kinds of stuff. You know, Dune goes to Eliadon Johnson, who wrote The Summer Prince, and, you know, because here's a voice that then was a voice, like, we're just not reading.

Arthur: We don't have that many African American science fiction writers on that. Where's the next Octavia Butler coming from? You know, where's, where's the next Frank Herbert could be an African American woman. So that's always been my passion in that way. Lisey Yee, you know, I found Lisey Yee's first novel in the slush.

Arthur: Wow. And I was like, This woman is freaking funny. She's so funny. And how many Lisa Yees, you know, are there going to be? She's got a really unique comic voice. 

Margot: So you took all this, this whole background and all this work with corporate publishing, as we talked about, and decided It was time for you to go on your own and really devote yourself to the kinds of books that you've been championed for a while, but now you can really put them out there in the world.

Arthur: I don't want to have to convince anyone anymore, you know? Um, that's what corporate publishing is for. An editor like you are successful because you can a convince other people. that what you want to acquire is something they should. And then you're successful to the extent that you can convince others to give you resources like marketing attention, you know, anything like that.

Arthur: And I was just, it's exhausting. 

Margot: You also, I think I'd read in the, An earlier interview where you said in corporate publishing as an editor, you brought the author in, you worked with the author, but then you had to like send the product out to other people to do the illustrations to do, to pick the paper, to figure out when you were going to release something, just the whole thing.

Margot: And now you have the freedom to make that just, I mean, in the way that you are able to really, create Harry Potter as a special book. Yeah. And not everybody could do that within corporate publishing, but you now can just, this is what you do. You give your all to every book. 

Arthur: Yeah, I definitely do. And there's just less friction.

Arthur: You know, everybody has only so much time and so much energy. And I really wanted to spend that on publishing the book, not convincing other people. 

Margot: Interesting. 

Arthur: And also, I really felt like the publishing process had gotten a bit broken. Instead of people who are readers reading something and saying, yes, this is something other people will want to read.

Arthur: And then that being the thing, 

Margot: it 

Arthur: got more and more distant. And there was more and more decisions that happened by consensus with everybody being quote, comfortable, right? Are we comfortable with this print run? Are we comfortable with this? Author or this artist? Yeah. Trying to make 12 people comfortable.

Arthur: Probably all of whom were gonna be white, middle class straight men. Some women in publishing. Plenty women. Oh, I thought, 

Margot: yeah. I thought those would be all women. 

Arthur: No, there's the, in the, 

Margot: in the upper echelons, I mean the upper echelons, you, you know, the 

Arthur: finance director was a guy and the head of sales was a guy.

Arthur: That's true. Yeah. There was a lot of. But they're primarily white, straight, upper middle class women. And you know, you're, they're not, this, this is not to say that those are bad people, but they have their, they come with their worldview and their frame of mind and, 

Margot: and their comfort zone 

Arthur: and their comfort zone.

Arthur: So if you're, if the goal is let's do something that everybody feels comfortable with, you're going to get a certain level of, Sameness. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: And you know what? I just, I think that's sort of out of order. Yeah. I really wanted to go in the beginning of my career. It really was that I would make a decision.

Arthur: I'd buy a book, maybe with my boss's approval, and then I would make the book. 

Margot: Right. 

Arthur: And make it as good as I could. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: And then when it was done, I would present it to the sales and marketing people. And then it would be their job to figure out how best to sell and market that book. I didn't ask them ahead of time, would you be comfortable selling this?

Arthur: You know, would you be comfortable marketing this? And 

Margot: this is what it's become now, 

Arthur: more. More or less. I mean, there's some gentility here and there. And it's remarkable. It's a testament to editors in that environment that so many amazing books get published through the corporate process that that's it for me.

Arthur: I don't. like to have to squash myself down in that way. Like, I really, I feel like the whole point is what we're passionate about. Yeah. Like, and that's, and that's what we get to do. 

Margot: And I, I think that truly comes through with your list. Like you actively search people out. You search out authors, you search out illustrators, which is amazing.

Margot: Like any fun, interesting stories about how, how you discovered certain people or. 

Arthur: Oh, wow. I mean, you know, the, the truth is the great. Notion or talent or comes from your whole life, right? You know not just the time that you spend sitting in front of your laptop So for instance on a chariot of fire is a book that's about to come out and it's about the b'nai israel of India, uh, one of the Jewish communities in India.

Arthur: And it's their origin story, um, which is kind of like, we all know about sort of know about Hanukkah and how there's this battle in ancient Israel over the Syrian Greeks who are oppressing them. And apparently some stayed to fight and some fled for their lives. And that's the story of the B'nai Israel of India.

Arthur: And I happened to encounter Siona Benjamin. Because she's a member of my community in Montclair, B'nai 

Margot: Keshet. 

Arthur: And she had illustrated Megillah, the story of Esther, that is on the wall in B'nai Keshet. And I, I'm like, well, this is like, she's the one, this is perfect. We got her to illustrate it and it's, it's gorgeous and it's coming out.

Margot: She's an amazing style of illustration. 

Arthur: Yeah. Very recognizable. Yeah. 

Margot: And I think she has, is it a wall now in the Montclair Art Museum? Yes. An exhibit. 

Arthur: Yes, yes. She does that. Yeah. She does have that. So, you know, I can think of the books that we do as a bunch of different buckets. And one is that, um, we're really committed as in On a Chariot of Fire to diversity and intersectionality within the Jewish experience.

Arthur: Yeah. And that's a book like Joyful Song by Lesleya Newman, illustrated by Susan Gall, that is like so gorgeous and so joyful and with a lot of historically marginalized communities. It's all about our oppression and our death. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: And it's really important to have books that are, you know, about a baby naming.

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: Um, about a community and that's fantastic. Wait, 

Margot: is Chariot of Fire going to be a picture book? It is. It's a picture book. Wow. 

Arthur: Yeah. Full of Siona's imagery. 

Margot: Beautiful. Do you have a sweet spot? I was trying to look at your lists. Like you do seem to have representation for picture books and then you have some early chapter books, too, that like.

Margot: A little more fun reading for kids. And then, of course, I have to say, I love your middle readers, NYA, because those are really where you really grapple with amazing topics for kids. 

Arthur: We do it all. Yes. Nonfiction. I mean, we, we can't be all things to all people, but, you know, sometimes when you look at a group like indigenous writers, yeah, there was virtually no, you know, publishing of Indigenous writers.

Arthur: So that leaves like the whole canon to be created. And it has to be from picture books to YA. You know, that's from the very beginning. Like we have three authors. We call the three D's. Daniel Nayeri, whose first book was Everything Sad is Untrue, which, 

Margot: oh, right. Yeah. 

Arthur: Which won a Prince medal. 

Margot: I know. 

Arthur: And then his second book is The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams, which is a Newbery honor book.

Arthur: Yeah. And he's just, you know, one of a kind author. There's, uh, Donna Barbara Higuera. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: Who is Latina and She won the Pura Belpré Award for a book on our first list. Yeah. And then won the Newbery Award for The Last Cuentista. Yeah. And we have Darcy Little Badger, who is a Lipan Apache author, who's incredible book, Elatsoe, was also on that first list.

Arthur: She became the first Native writer to be honored by the Newberry committee. So I guess those are all longer fiction, but then you have things like Mavasta Hanyoti's book, Coming Home, which is about a Hopi family. And it's the grandfather's story. And he's sent to a boarding school. Those notorious boarding schools in the, The U.

Arthur: S. that were designed to rip the cultural traditions from the Native Americans. But how he managed to come back and then convey all of them to his children and grandchildren. And the book is done in this unbelievable, like, traditional woodcut style. Like, I don't, I think, 

Margot: That 

Arthur: book will, no one will leave unchanged by that book, right?

Arthur: You've seen it. 

Margot: Yeah. Yeah. And your ability to find these illustrators for the picture books is amazing. I mean, there's no feeling of commercial, whatever. It's like each book is a fine art book and so beautifully illustrates the story. 

Arthur: You know, we try, I have to say that. So that was one of the reasons I got into publishing was because my mother was an artist and always have had a deep love of beautiful artwork.

Arthur: And, you know, my early training with Phyllis Fogelman and Athe Teehan, who published the Dillons and Jerry Pinkney. And that's really stayed with me my whole life. life and career. So yes, I, I really want things to be beautiful. And I also really resist trendy styles. Like right now I identify that as the Pixar ripoff style.

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: Like, okay, you know, that can't be the style that's appropriate for every single person. Come on, let's like work a little harder. But I guess if the goal is to say, well, this book was a success. Let's make it look like that book. Then that's why you have all this imitation. And to me, I'm more of the Eloise Greenfield.

Arthur: You know, find the right word. The artist who's most emotionally invested and whose style will bring out all the nuances of the text. And fortunately, Nick Thomas, our executive editor, and Irene Vazquez, our associate editor, are also equally good at like finding fantastic artists. I mean, Irene is just beginning.

Arthur: They have their first book coming out that they edited called Night, which is an African fable about this town where everyone's complaining about Uh, they found that in the slush pile and the artist is another brilliant African American artist who's making her debut. And I'm like, wow, this, to me, this is like Verna Artema and the Dillons, you know, has that feeling.

Arthur: But when I have people like that on my staff who are coming through and Nick, Nick found Mavasta on Yoti. And also there's a book called Chooch Helped, which is. Andrea Wallets, and it's illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kuhns, and it's, this is also a kind of book that I love. This is Nick's book. And in many ways, it's, it's just an, it's an older sibling story.

Arthur: Like this older sister, like her baby brother is like constantly interfering with what she's doing and ruining things, like knocking things over, et cetera. 

Margot: I saw the pages in Edelweiss. Yeah. And the illustration of that. It's like a style I'd never seen before. It totally fits the feeling of the story.

Margot: It's right. Well, wonderful. 

Arthur: They're both, both author and artist are Cherokee. Okay. And it's really beautiful and it's imbued with the true, like the Cherokee culture of this family, not in a kind of, now let's teach you about Cherokee culture, but it's this wonderful family story. Yeah. And that's my favorite thing.

Margot: Well, the other thing that I wanted to touch on is the challenge that you've had in building Levine Corrido. And you started in 2019 and we've had a couple of challenges. Oh, yes, we have. COVID being one, but most importantly is it was. It's the banned books movement, which really hit you 

Arthur: hard, right? Right.

Arthur: I mean, COVID was a pain. Like, you know, nobody wanted to get COVID and it was awful and people died. And I don't want to minimize that in terms of starting a publishing house. That wasn't the big obstacle. The big obstacle was when the far right got organized about book banning. And we used to say, there used to be this saying, Oh, we want to get the book banned because then the publicity will be so great that you'll sell more copies than ever.

Arthur: No longer true. 

Margot: Because the libraries are under siege. 

Arthur: Right. And first of all, and these are such, these books are, it's such a wide swath of books, anything with a LGBTQ plus character, most African American stuff. Basically all of the communities that I publish are under siege. And what happens is they, they bound them from school districts and they, they've attacked the libraries.

Arthur: And then, you know, even teachers who don't share those values are like. Afraid to Yeah. Stock a book that might cause a fuss or Right. And the libraries, you know, yeah. They're already vulnerable and their funding is vulnerable and Right. You know, so you have what you call shadow ban, 

Margot: where 

Arthur: it's not even that the book is banned, it's that the person responsible for bringing it in.

Arthur: Right. Just says, uh, maybe I'll just pass on this. Right. 'cause it's a, you know, seminal object and, you know, that was so severe in 2023 that we nearly went outta business. Like our income was cut by 50 percent. Like not a little bit. Yeah. You know, 50 percent. 

Margot: Yeah. 

Arthur: And it's not like that's let up. Oh, okay.

Arthur: It's just as much banning as ever. So is there anything you can do? Well, you know, we can collaborate with other people. Organizations that, you know, the ALA has a right to read program that we're very passionate about, you know, Our indie booksellers are still like our best bet, you know, because it's indie booksellers are Individuals who make their decisions based on their values and their tastes So we can only hope that enough will share our love of these books to give them a chance.

Arthur: And then even, you know, we've been really lucky to win a lot of awards. 

Margot: Amazing. You start this company and just like immediately are recognized and Yeah. 

Arthur: I think the main thing is just that, what we were talking about before, it's like when you're trying to create individual books that you're passionate about, you know, from the prose to the art to the packaging.

Arthur: And that's your focus. Like our focus is not on awards. Our focus is on finding and daring the extraordinary. Yeah. Luckily in these first years, that's been recognized because we're not imitating somebody else. We're not trying to have a book that's a little bit like that book that was successful. We're trying to have our own thing.

Margot: Well, I hope we can all continue to support and, you know, spread the word on the amazing books that you put out. 

Arthur: Thank you. And I can only hope that independent bookstores like Watchung Booksellers stay healthy and solid 

Margot: because 

Arthur: we're allies. Yes. 

Margot: Yeah, we definitely are. I don't want to end without finding out, what are you personally reading?

Margot: Oh! Do you have time to 

Arthur: read anything on your own? I definitely, I definitely do. And I read very broadly, you wouldn't be surprised. Like on my bookshelf, I'm reading the 1619 Project. 

Margot: Wow. 

Arthur: Which I hadn't gotten a chance to read yet. And I'm reading Queer Romance by K. J. Charles. Who I just love because I can just sink into that and, you know, I don't have to think about any conventions or, you know, nominations or anything.

Margot: Yeah. I'm just finishing up. I wanted to just read mysteries this summer also as my escape. So, um, yeah, I'm reading Happiness Falls by Angie Kim, which is not a formulaic mystery and it involves missing father with An autistic teenage son who may or may not be involved in. So it's like, yeah, my, my favorite book though, the summer so far has been James by Percival Everett, the retelling of Huckleberry Finn.

Margot: Yeah. I really want to read that. 

Arthur: I'm going to come in and buy that, like, tomorrow. 

Margot: Talk about reading something that makes you rethink everything that you had been fed. 

Arthur: Yeah, for me, that was, that was Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad. Yes. I just read that book and I felt like, wow, My view of history is changed now.

Arthur: Yes. And I love that. It's also very, very well written. 

Margot: And that goes back to the importance that, that you brought up about having different voices bring their stories, their authentic stories to make us all think outside of the box that we were brought up in. 

Arthur: Right. 

Margot: And, uh, so yeah. 

Arthur: I'm reading Kantika.

Margot: What's that? K 

Arthur: A N T I K A. It's about a Sephardic Jewish. Woman and the centuries of history. Wow. Behind the story. Ooh. It was fascinating. I can't remember the, the author's name. 

Margot: It'll be in our show notes so people will be able to find it. But yeah, this is, I, I mean, I still have about 15 questions to ask you.

Margot: Yeah. But in the, 

Arthur: and I want everyone to read, uh, the Forbidden Book by Sasha Lamb when it comes out. 

Margot: Oh, okay. 

Arthur: Good. We this fall 

Margot: and we. Look forward to you continuing to bring us these beautiful books. And we also are very grateful for your support over the years. 

Arthur: You know, I love Watchung Booksellers.

Margot: Thank you, Arthur. 

Arthur: Like every publisher I've worked for refers to Watchung Booksellers as Arthur's Bookstore. 

Margot: Oh, 

Arthur: oh, that's Arthur's Bookstore. Yes, well, yes, it's my hometown bookstore. 

Margot: But we are happy to be your book star. Thank you, Arthur. Okay, thank you, Margot.

Kathryn: Thanks, Arthur and Margot. Arthur, we're proud of the books you publish, and they will always have a home at Watchung Booksellers and in the Kids Room. And listeners, you can find all the books they mention on our show notes or at watchungbooksellers.com. 

Marni: Before we go, be sure to join us tomorrow, Wednesday, July 31st at 4 30 for our Where's Waldo party in the Kids Room.

Marni: We'll also be celebrating the first anniversary of the Kids Room. 

Kathryn: You can find out more about all of our upcoming events in our newsletter, show notes, and at watchungbooksellers. com. Recording and editing at Silverstream Studio in Montclair, New Jersey. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi, Bree Testa, and Derek Matthias.

Kathryn: Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica. Art and design by Evelyn Moulton, and research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff. Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids Room for their hard work and love of 

Marni: books. And thank you for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please like, follow, and share it.

Marni: You can follow us on social media at Watchung Booksellers. And if you have any questions, you can reach out to wbpodcasts at watchungbooksellers. com. We'll see you next week. 

Kathryn: Until then, for the love of books, keep reading.