Tag Archives: buying

What has changed?

This political season, Amazon is tracking all of the “red books” and “blue books” sold. It’s been fun watching the trends as they move through the country, but I’m having a tough time making sense of any of it. Usually, all the traditionally more liberal states are buying the “blue books, while the more traditionally conservative states are buying the “red books”. Here is a May-June snapshot that Amazon posted:

Continue reading What has changed?

Brits banding books

I was lurking around the net, familiarizing myself with children’s books from the 1940’s (per one commenter’s suggestion) and I ran across an news tidbit saying the UK publishers are going to start rating children’s books. Just like the movies, though this seems more aimed at “reading level” than content. Though, surely, there is some of that too.

The age ranking will go: Early (for five years plus), Developing (7 plus) Confident (9 plus) and Fluent.

When gift buying for nephews, I always wonder which book to get. The reading abilities and tastes seem so hard to figure out at that age. Honestly. I have more faith in my local bookseller’s knowledge about what would be a good purchase, but this would seem to be a step in the right direction to help the clueless (such as myself).