10 criteria we use to pick titles for our children’s book subscription boxes
Back in 2017 we launched our first test subscription box to a handful of enthusiastic readers. The book we chose was Spangles McNasty and the Fish of Gold by Steve Webb, illustrated by Chris Mould.
We had spent a huge amount of time talking about how we should go about picking the perfect books for our boxes. We set ourselves some ground rules and went on the hunt for books that would meet them.
Remarkably, we still stick to those key ground rules all these years later.
Wouldn’t it have been a wonderful story if we could say we’d written them down on a napkin during our early discussions about launching our business? We’d share the photo with you now and probably have it framed on our office wall!
Sadly, the truth is much more pedestrian. We’ve worked tirelessly these past 7 years to build our industry expertise and network. As a result, we’ve added a few more rules and ‘nice to haves’ and have become much more adept at finding brilliant new books to share with our subscribers.
So how do you go about choosing the books?
We create the content for each box many months before it will arrive with subscribers, so start by pulling together a longlist of titles that are due to publish around the time the box is due. We talk to publishers and scour industry press.
Then it’s time to shortlist the titles that we think might best fit our selection criteria (more below). We’re also mindful to ensure there’s a nice variation of genres and styles month to month.
Finally, it’s time to read them. We are always pleased to be able to reassure customers that we have read (and re-read) every single book we send, plus many more in our efforts to shortlist the most appropriate for our boxes.
Our bottom line is that we would never send a book that we wouldn’t happily share or have shared with our own children (they’re a lot older now than when we started the business!)
What we're looking for in a children's chapter book
Here are our 10 guiding principles, in no particular order:
1. Chapter books that are a bit different
Our subscriptions are a great way of discovering new books, authors and series. There are so many amazing children’s books and the choice can be overwhelming, which is one reason why we think kids and parents very often end up going back to the same favourite authors and series.
We know it can be difficult to find something new or to encourage your kids to break out of a reading rut. And that’s where our subscription comes in.
2. No bestsellers, celebrity authors or playground favourites
Our primary driver is to choose titles that we don’t think you will have already discovered for yourselves. After all, there’s no point us sending you the latest David Walliams or Jacqueline Wilson when you can easily find those books for yourselves – and probably already have them on your bookshelves!
We’ve shared more thoughts on the impact of celebrity authors in this blog post.
3. No classics
Similarly, no-one needs our help to discover children’s classics, in fact many parents remember them fondly from their own childhoods.
Beyond that, we think the issue of whether or not to encourage children to read classics and childhood favourites is a thorny one. We’ve shared some more detailed thoughts in this blog post.
4. Books that are flying under the radar
We look for books that are flying under the radar for whatever reason. We work directly with a whole range of publishers, including lots of independent publishers, who are publishing great books but don’t get the same shelf space in Waterstones and don’t have the same marketing budgets as the big hitters.
It’s worth mentioning under this criteria that we love featuring books that have been translated into English. They're sadly a rare treat on bookshop shelves but often offer a different style and sensibility which we think it's great for our subscribers to experience!
5. New and emerging authors
This is one of our ‘nice to have’ criteria. We absolutely love championing debut authors and feel proud to have shared early works by talented writers that have gone on to amazing things such as Alastair Chisholm, Sam Copeland, Alex Falase-Koya, Helen Rutter and Nathanael Lessore.
6. We choose books for boys AND girls
We don’t believe in books for boys and books for girls. Let kids be kids and let books be books!
Everyone in each of our reading categories gets the same book each month – it’s a book club, after all. Therefore, it’s important that all our title selections are gender neutral, so when we are researching books for our subscription boxes we deliberately avoid titles that are pitched and packaged specifically for one particular gender or the other.
We make sure that our book selections represent a balance of male and female characters, so that over the course of a subscription you will meet a whole range of heroes and heroines.
You can read more about why our book club is gender neutral here.
7. Diverse and inclusive stories for all readers
Making sure our title choices represent ALL readers is always at the front of our minds.
We work hard to find titles that authentically represent black and racially minoritised characters – something that is still sadly lacking in children’s literature.
Diversity in children’s publishing is a topic of much discussion in the industry at the moment and there are lots of great initiatives aimed at redressing the balance (with a special mention for the fantastic work being done by Knights Of, Storymix and Inclusive Books for Children).
We also looks for stories featuring characters with disabilities or health problems, stories that challenge stereotypes and works by a broad spectrum of authors and illustrators.
8. The first book in a series
Chapter book series play an important role in nurturing children’s love of reading – they build confidence and enthusiasm for characters, stories and genres.
Whilst many series, especially for emerging readers, can be read out of order we feel it’s a special privilege to introduce our subscribers to a new series which we can see is going to run and run. They learned about it first through their subscription box and will be able to seek out future installments in their library or bookshop.
We've share some recommendations of the best new children's book series and why they're so brilliant here.
9. Limited repetition of authors
This has only become a selection criteria in more recent years but we aim not to repeat authors in an age category. This links back to the fact we think so much of the value in our subscription boxes comes from introducing families to something new and different.
10. Great books to inspire great book chat
It goes without saying that we are looking for the best books in children’s fiction, the cream of the crop, and that the quality of the books we send is as high as it can be.
Actually, there is a much bigger debate to be had about good books vs. bad books (is there such a thing?) – and for the record we firmly believe that any book that gets a kid reading for pleasure is a good thing.
But it’s important to us that the books we send are of the highest quality in terms of their content and presentation, and that the stories within them have enough narrative and thematic depth to inspire a meaningful discussion.
The activity packs we create to send along with our books each month always include a set of book club-style questions, designed to encourage our subscribers to think a bit more deeply about what they are reading and relate it to their own experiences. We also include a range of activities with each book, from arts and crafts to word games, facts, recipes and more – all inspired by that month’s book. Our title selections therefore represent a whole range of themes and genres.
So there you have it – the main criteria that help guide us to select each of the 4 books we choose for subscribers each month (one each for Parakeets and Cockatoos and two for Macaws).
We’ve receive fantastic feedback from our subscribers and their parents on the books we send, which makes all the hard work that goes into choosing them worthwhile.
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