In the Land of Storybooks : Sensitive Tales of Life’s Woes, Multicultural Families Fuel a Boom in Children’s Books

Once upon a time, there was a mother who had a 4-year-old son, Jason. And a very bright boy he was. The week before Christmas, she dragged him to a New York City bookstore. And what a big store it was!

“I have a boy, a very bright boy, and he wants a book on snakes,” she told a clerk. “Can you help him? Can you help me?”

“Yes, I can help you,” the clerk said. She showed Jason a whole shelf of children’s books about snakes. “We have just the book for you. And here it is!”

The clerk put it in a big plastic bag and handed it to Jason. “Merry Christmas!” she called out as he and his mother walked out of the store.

That night, Jason’s mother read him the new book. They all lived happily ever after . . . until Jason decided he was really interested in rocket ships.

Thirty years ago, Jason and the Snake would have been a fairy tale, a fantasy few parents could have imagined. Most children’s books were available only in libraries, and the titles in a handful of bookstores were limited to classics like “Little Women” and bestsellers by writers such as Dr. Seuss.

Then the boomers took over, their pockets bulging with cash.

Today, children’s books are big business, with annual sales growing from $231 million in 1982 to nearly $1.2 billion in 1992, according to industry surveys. And as the number of books grows, so does the variety. Publishers routinely target customers like Jason with products geared to their age. It’s easier than ever for parents to buy books.

But not just any books.

Indeed, a random check of children’s stores across the country this holiday season shows growing consumer sophistication. Beyond the glut of Barney books and movie tie-ins, parents are snapping up politically sensitive tales about children from all races and backgrounds, making multiculturalism a hot field.

Concerned about education, Mom and Dad are shopping for books on science, math and social studies that kids can understand. They’re also scouring the aisles for books that explain life’s problems. Sellers report brisk business in stories written from a kid’s viewpoint, dealing with everything from alcoholism, traumatic trips to the dentist, adoption, and AIDS to death.

“There’s been a tremendous change in this field, to the point where it’s almost unrecognizable over 20 or 30 years,” says Linda Dimitroff, a manager at Children’s Book World in West Los Angeles. “Many parents today are . . . deeply involved in what their kids read.”

The growth in children’s publishing is also driven by recent developments in school curricula, which stress storytelling as an integral part of learning to read. As a result, schools are buying more original books than ever.

The fruits of this revolution are apparent in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago stores, where business is heavier than most markets. Even though the U.S. publishing market has flattened somewhat in recent years, the aisles of children’s book sections seem busier than ever this holiday season.

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Dimitroff, for example, can’t keep up with the demand for “Too Many Tamales” (Putnam), one of the first children’s books about Latinos in the United States to reach a broad American audience.

Written by Gary Soto and illustrated by Ed Martinez, it tells the story of Maria, a girl who fears she has lost her mother’s diamond ring in a platter of tamales. She and her friends gobble them up, hoping to find the ring. Happily, Maria finds it by the end of the book.

“At the end, the whole family gathers around and says, ‘Let’s go back in the kitchen and we’ll make a new batch of tamales,’ ” Dimitroff says. “Both men and women participate, which is really nice. It’s a very popular book and we’ve completely sold out of it.”

Unfortunately, she adds, not many Latino books have experienced similar results. In contrast, African American titles have grown. Although it came out several years ago, “The People Could Fly: American Black Folk Tales told by Virginia Hamilton” (Knopf) continues to sell.

Other African American titles doing well this season include “Brown Angels” by Walter Dean Myers (HarperCollins), “Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky” by Faith Ringgold (Crown Books), “The Girl Who Wore Snakes” by Angela Johnson (Orchard Books) and “Uncle Jed’s Barbershop” by Margaree King Mitchell (Simon & Schuster).

“Twenty years ago, you didn’t see many books with people of color as protagonists,” Dimitroff says. “But now you see books about Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans and Vietnamese. Some sell across the board, because people outside these groups buy them for kids as a learning experience.”

Among many recent titles, “The Bracelet” by Yoshiko Uchida (Philomel) tells the poignant story of a Japanese American girl in a World War II internment camp. Also popular is “Brother Eagle, Sister Sky” by Susan Jeffers (Dial), a sumptuously illustrated book of Native American stories.

Still, while multicultural books have caught fire, general interest books aimed at 2- to 3-year-olds continue to dominate the U.S. children’s market.

Dimitroff notes that “Time for Bed” by Mem Fox (Gulliver/Harcourt Brace) is one of her best-sellers. The picture book, which features paintings of sleeping animals, has done well because “parents seem to take special interest in their kids when they’re that young,” she says.

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Parents are also drawn to books that thrilled them when they were kids.

In New York, booksellers reap big profits from classics and perennial bestsellers. At the Barnes and Noble superstore on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, customers have bought more than 500 hard-bound copies of Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” (Random House) since May. Not bad for a 33-year-old book.

“I’d estimate that half of the books we sell are the old ones,” says Cathy Mithog, the store’s children’s book supervisor. “People are always buying the classics because they very much want to give their children the kind of books they were raised on.”

Mithog points to tables stacked with perennial sellers, such as “The Polar Express” by Chris Van Allesberg (Houghton-Mifflin), “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White (Buccaneer Books) and “Pat the Bunny” by Dorothy Kunhardt (Golden Books), a book that millions of children have enjoyed and torn to pieces at least once.

The Kunhardt legacy continues in “Pat the Puppy” and “Pat the Cat” by her daughter, Edith (Golden Books). But the mother’s 1940 classic has been updated: Young readers who once scraped sandpaper pages to simulate daddy’s morning face can now rub scratch-and-sniff pages that smell like Grandma’s fresh-baked brownies.

Sometimes classics live on with a twist: Children are enjoying new takes on old stories in “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,” by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (Viking). Set against bizarre illustrations, the book tells the story of “Jack and the Problem Bean,” “Chicken Licken,” “The Really Ugly Duckling” and “Little Red Running Shorts.”

On a more serious note, Barnes and Noble customers are drawn to an entire section of kids’ books on human problems. “Alex, the Kid With AIDS,” by Linda Walvoord Girard (Albert Whitman and Co.), tells how schoolchildren learn to respect a young boy with the deadly disease.

“These days, children’s departments are no different from adult sections, they’re just a miniature version,” Mithog says. “All the topics are there, including books on social problems. You just have to know where to look.”

Her 5,000-square-foot department groups such titles by topic: substance abuse, childhood fears, divorce, long-term illness and dying. The latter subject draws readers from coast to coast: In Los Angeles, Dimitroff says she carries at least 50 books for kids on death and dying, with more coming out all the time.

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But cheer up. Children’s books can also be a warm trip down memory lane.

In Chicago, booksellers are catering to a growing number of adults who buy children’s titles strictly for themselves. Margaret Wroclawski, chief buyer for the Children’s Bookstore, says the nostalgia market is booming:

“These are people who purchase books because they had them as kids and still love them. And sometimes the books are new. They have adult humor and publishers now realize that grown-ups just love stories with big pictures.”

Several such titles are doing well this season. Leading the pack is Maurice Sendak’s “We Are All in the Dumps With Jack and Guy” (HarperCollins), which features modern urban fables with luminous and disquieting illustrations. Critics have also praised “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), a poem by Maya Angelou with unsettling paintings that appeal to children and adults alike.

Other crossover titles include “Speak!” edited by Michael J. Rosen (Harcourt Brace & Co.), in which prominent illustrators of children’s books brag about their dogs; “Ship,” by David Macaulay (Houghton-Mifflin), a fascinating look at the history and construction of a 500-year-old boat, and “Carl Goes to Daycare,” by Alexandra Day (Farras, Straus & Giroux).

Day’s book features a lovable Rottweiler who does it all: He watches children at day care, entertains them at lunch, puts them down for naps and cleans up spills. Children love the book, but adults have also been charmed by its striking illustrations and near absence of text.

Inevitably, the book has spawned imitators. Could a new genre--wordless books about charismatic dogs--be lurking around the corner?

“That’s the beauty of the kids’ market,” Wroclawski says. “These days, you pick and choose. You and your child have a bigger selection than ever.”