Jacob and Jonah Do BEA

Last weekend Michael Cader’s Publishers Marketplace website offered a kid's-eye view of the Book Expo America convention through the blog of sons Jacob and Jonah. These guys were early on the Eragon bandwagon a few years ago, as I recall. So for better or for worse, what J&J find exciting in fantasy might be well worth knowing about.

The blog contains occasional gushing, as in the end of a report titled “Interview with Holly Black (famous author)”:

Spiderwick is an amazing bestselling young readers' series. I loved the first series and I hope the second will be just as good. It was awesome to meet Holly Black. Reading a series and then meeting the author and asking her questions was just amazing.

But it also has occasional signs of a clear-eyed, almost cynical understanding the symbiosis between marketing departments and the press:

After we were enticed by HarperCollins' great pitch to us involving food and titles that went with them, ("We wanted to make them hungry for good books," said Nicole Mathieu of Harper) it is only fair to talk about some of their upcoming publications.

I don't know which attitude from young people is more unsettling.

But finally I came down on a third candidate for that designation, the young gents' report on MiYu Magic Stones:

This is extremely big in Holland right now. It’s a collection of stones that come in a pouch or a small chest-like box. Most people want to try and collect all three of their birthstones first, and then you want to collect all the rest -- 40 in total.

Yes, those crazy Dutch, the world's tallest nation. Whose idea of entertainment includes collecting rocks and watching endurance contests between people hanging onto bluejeans over a canal.