The children’s book business is magical and those of us who are involved in it are very fortunate.” —Karen Grencik
Here are a few of our career highlights.
Karen Grencik’s Highlights
Click each photo to view the related photo gallery.
A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl
Karen flew to Vermont to celebrate Tanya Lee Stone's extraordinary book launch for A Bad Boy Can Be Good. It was a 36-hour whirlwind, but absolutely worth the effort!
> View Photos
George Hogglesberry, Grade School Alien
Sarah Wilson's George Hogglesberry, Grade School Alien wins the Golden Kite Award for Best Picture Book Text.
Double Luck: Memoirs of a Chinese Orphan.
Memorable moments for Lu Chi Fa and Becky White's Double Luck: Memoirs of a Chinese Orphan.
How Butterbees Came to Bee!
A chance meeting with Academy Award Winning Illustrator, David Michener, led to a winning team for authors Lana Bloch and Tanya Bloch. How Butterbees Came to Bee! won The Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Fiction for a New Publisher and we all traveled to New York to receive it. It felt like we were at the Academy Awards!
Click each thumbnail to view the related video.
Behind the Scenes of Double Luck
Publishing Double Luck
The phone call from Kate Briggs, publisher at Holiday House, about publishing Double Luck
Abigail Samoun’s Highlights
Yesterday I Had the Blues
With just a few months of editing experience under her belt, Abigail acquired Yesterday I Had the Blues, an unsoliticed manuscript from first-time author Jeron Frame. Abigail paired the text with illustrator R. Gregory Christie’s vibrant, poignant artwork and the picture book received three starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.
“Debut author Frame and consistently masterful Christie riff on the range of human emotions with the agility of longtime collaborators, and the result is a book that truly sings.” –Publishers Weekly
• Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award
• Nick Jr. Family Magazine Best Book of the Year
• Claudia Lewis Award—Bank Street College of Education
• Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books 2003 Blue Ribbon
• 2004 Best of the Best List—Chicago Public Library
• 2004 Carolyn W. Field Award Honor Book
Edgar & Ellen
Abigail edited the Edgar & Ellen middle-grade series by Star Farm Productions. The nine-book series has sold rights in twelve languages and half-a-million copies worldwide. It also launched a cartoon series on NickToons Network.
What Can You Do with a Rebozo?
Abigail is proud to have edited the Pura Belpre Honor winner and ALA Notable Book, What Can You Do with a Rebozo?
Twelve Terrible Things
This book began as an illustration sample from Marty Kelley that portrayed an overly exuberant elderly relative coming in for a big smooch. Abigail proposed a book that would feature similar universal traumas of childhood and Marty was up for the challenge. Twelve Terrible Things received a starred review in School Library Journal and a glowing review in The New York Times by A Series of Unfortunate Events author, Lemony Snickett (aka Daniel Handler).
SCBWI in Paris
Paris on its own isn’t bad. Paris + SCBWI = Dang amazing. This was a conference put on by the fabulous Erzsi Deak, who is now Red Fox Literary’s esteemed foreign rights agent. From left to right: John Shelley, Abigail, Leonard Marcus, Barbara McClintock, Nancy Mercado, and Tony Bradman.
Abi & Peepy
A definite career highlight for Abigail was listening to Lisa Yee’s diminutive companion, Peepy, pitch her four-volume epic memoir at the SCBWI Wisconsin Fall 2009 Retreat.