Guest post by a NYC transplant from California working in School & Library Marketing at Bloomsbury Children’s Books
 |
| Linette Kim |
Like just about everybody who works in publishing, books were a huge part of my childhood. It amazes me still that my parents, who were not well-to-do at all and had just moved to the States from Korea, somehow managed to mail-order picture books for me before I was even old enough to talk. Even more amazing, English isn’t their first language, so read-alouds weren’t exactly a part of our daily routine. Instead, when I was old enough, I would sit with these books strewn about the room, thumbing through the pages, making up stories based on the pictures.
Not surprisingly, middle grade was the most formative time in my literary life. More specifically, middle school was when I discovered Ann M. Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club. This series did everything to ignite in me a passion for writing and reading, as well as a love of grammar!, that has only grown since. I am also amazed in retrospect at the diversity of the BSC cast—Look, minorities! On the jackets! As a reader, it didn’t occur to me to even think twice about this, nor did I appreciate it as much as I do now. I mention all this especially because I got to meet Ann M. Martin this very weekend at a Books of Wonder event, where both she, as well as Bloomsbury author and one of my favorite people in the world, Shannon Hale, were panelists. I didn’t think it was possible to get that emotional upon meeting a writer. I was wrong. And when I asked Ann for an autograph, the Newbery Honor winning author wrote, “BSC 4-ever!” Yes. I could have died.
