News from Macmillan, the large publishers group that embraces such houses as St. Martins Press, Holt, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Blooomsbury, Tor, plus college publishers and magazines, is that in response to a very bad last quarter and prospects for at least another six hard months, it has not only eliminated 64 positions from all imprints but is consolidating various children’s imprints into a single division under Holt’s Dan Farley. Says John Sargent, head of Macmillan, “when you roll up our children’s business now, it’s a lot bigger than it was operating as disparate individual companies.”

Sargent’s commitment to children’s books is reflected at other trade publishers that have suffered losses in every area except young readers. It seems that the Harry Potter effect is still dominating an otherwise sluggish marketplace: books for kids are going strong and in some cases carrying the adult list. It’s hard to say exactly why.

It would seem, though, that however tightly parents pull in their own belts, they will not suffer their children to go without. Like the benign grownups in a children’s story, a mother or father will sacrifice luxuries so that their kids won’t go wanting. In the big bad world on the other side of the door, wolves prowl and snarl and greedy wicked villains prey on the innocent, but as long as mommy or daddy is reading a book to a child, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.

RC