Interactive books that use Web pages and CDs to help tell their stories and keep kids guessing will continue to hold children’s and young adults’ attention in 2009, a University of Alabama children’s literature expert predicts. These new multi-platform books include Richard Riordan’s “The 39 Clues” series, which features extensive new media enhancement.
“The books come with trading cards, and kids can go online to a Web site, interact with the characters, predict the ending, and get clues to help solve the mystery that’s in the book,” says Dr. Jamie Campbell Naidoo, an assistant professor in UA’s School of Library and Information Studies. “In the future and especially in 2009, the books that are popular will be much more interactive between the reader and the book.”
Naidoo also predicts children, tweens and young adults will continue to seek out fantasy titles in line with the wildly popular Harry Potter and “Twilight” young-adult series about love between a teenage girl and a vampire.
The coming year will also see a continued increase in literature aimed at young Hispanic readers as well as Spanish or multilingual material.
“Because of the growing Latino population, publishers are realizing that librarians and teachers need books that are in Spanish or bilingual books that are in English and Spanish,” Naidoo says. “So there are a lot of books that are being published in English and Spanish.”
Naidoo notes that it’s difficult to predict what new series will be the next “Twilight” or “Harry Potter” because children and teens find the books themselves, and popularity grows through word of mouth.
“A lot of times kids will adopt something that’s totally different from what adults expect them to like,” Naidoo says. “Adults may pick the books that win the awards, but kids are going to pick what they want. Ultimately, it’s the kids who call the shots for the next book craze.”
Naidoo sits on the national Association for Library Service to Children panel that in January 2009 will select the winner of the Caldecott Medal, which recognizes the best illustrated book for 2008.
Contact
Dr. Jamie Campbell Naidoo, 205/348-1518, jcnaidoo@slis.ua.edu