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Confidence-building titles are continuing to boom across the children’s market as TikTok drives YA, The Bookseller’s Children’s Conference has heard.
Jaclyn Swope, publisher account manager at Nielsen BookScan, shared insights for her session "International Children's Book Trends in the Age of Covid" at the event on 22nd September.
Swope was optimistic about the state of children’s publishing, saying: “We saw more growth than decline by the end of the year. The countries that did end up down for the year were the ones that tended to have the strictest lockdowns due to Covid. Unfortunately, during the periods outside of lockdown, they couldn’t balance out those lockdown periods."
She added: "For bestsellers across 2021, we are definitely seeing a lot of strong middle-grade fiction, which is typical, we would normally see this for our territories.”
Non-fiction and general interest is continuing to surge in popularity, Swope said, explaining: “We’re seeing growth across a lot of territories for this over the past few years. It’s obviously been a big growth area for the UK and that’s echoed in a lot of the international territories. All of the territories are in growth in this area for this year so far. You can see certain themes in the bestsellers—things like science and nature, local culture or religion.” Other top-performing titles included those from social media stars, hobbies and activities titles, and some cookbooks, she said.
Inspirational themes are doing particularly well, Swope added. “Certainly a theme we’ve been seeing in the UK, starting from a few years ago, is more of the inspirational stories for kids, transitioning into self-help and building confidence for kids... [titles] such as You Sre a Champion by Marcus Rashford [Macmillan Children's Books] and some local titles like Break the Mould [Wren & Rook] in Ireland and story collections like Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls [Penguin].”
She went on: “Shifting a bit younger, we see those themes come through in pre-school and picture books. We are also seeing strong growth in books for pre-school-age kids too, in 2020 and 2019... so there is certainly an increase in pre-school and early learning.” She cited Disney titles, Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol books selling well internationally.
Middle-grade fiction is ahead of both 2019 and 2020 across international territories and Swope revealed the dominating trends were "a lot of fantasy and magic". She also reiterated how TikTok is fuelling YA fiction growth across the world. She said: “There has been a big boost from TikTok this year. Looking at the overall YA fiction and crossover authors, we can definitely see a few authors who have had this backlist boost from being popular on TikTok—like Adam Silvera and E Lockhart and all these other fantasy series.”
Overall, Swope is confident about the state of the children’s market. She said: “In summary, we’re in a really good place in children’s books across the world, not just surpassing 2020 but also surpassing 2019... Covid didn’t really change the trends that much. What is doing well was also doing well in 2019 and in early 2020. Covid really just amplified those trends, as books became more important for education and entertainment, and as new platforms emerged to drive the discovery of those new books.”
Also at the Children’s Conference on 22nd September, a manifesto was launched by nine publishers committing to increased empathy-building strategies, while International Literary Properties revealed it had acquired Patrick Carman’s Skeleton Creek series.