Women’s History

From the intersection of girl power, STEM, and the #MeToo movement comes an emerging publishing trend: biographies of strong women from the sciences and arts, both current and historical, written for children. While these types of books are not new in and of themselves, they are definitely top of mind now:

• Mudpuppy, a sibling company to Chronicle Books, is offering the Little Feminist board book set, focusing on women pioneers, artists, leaders, and activists who have made an impact on history.
• Quarto sells a biography series called Little People, Big Dreams, which includes scientists (e.g., Marie Curie), mathematicians (Ada Lovelace), authors (Agatha Christie), musicians (Ella Fitzgerald), and fashion designers (Coco Chanel), among other groundbreaking women. It is spinning off four titles into board books for the youngest readers.
• Discovery’s new STEM-themed Discovery #Mindblown brand for kids 6-12, with Merch Source as the master licensee, includes a line of books called STEM Stars. The first titles, STEM Stars Women Who Rocked Medicine and STEM Stars Women Who Rocked Space, are available at Target.
• National Geographic published Dr. E’s Super Stellar Solar System, a nonfiction book about space by Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary geologist and member of the NASA Mars Rover Curiosity mission.
• Sourcebooks has released the picture book biography Shark Lady, by Jess Keating, which is about the late marine biologist Eugenie Clark.

All were being shown at this year’s Toy Fair and, according to the exhibitors, were catching the eyes of attendees. While only one of these examples is a licensed product, licensors and licensees with relevant or complementary properties and products might want to keep this trend in mind.

To read RaugustReports’ detailed observations on this year’s edition of Toy Fair, see our just-posted story here. Last year’s version is included as well, for a historical perspective. If you are interested in licensed publishing, meanwhile, see a list of Karen Raugust’s Publishers Weekly articles on Toy Fair and other licensing topics here. PW is a subscription publication, but most of Karen’s coverage appears in Children’s Bookshelf, a free e-newsletter, first. Subscribe here.

Finally, and on another topic, if you are interested in the rise of incubator, accelerator, and crowdsourcing-based innovation programs in licensing, watch for Monday’s RaugustReports post. We will also provide a link to an inside view of the incubator pitch process, as illustrated by the NFLPA’s OneTeam Collective initiative.