What DO librarians want in a picture book?

 I'm Robin Currie, the January Author for Mighty Kid Lit.

What DO librarians want in a picture book?

Have you tried to walk in and pitch your book to the librarian at the desk and have her either accept it as a donation or tell you to write to some other library staff? Even if you are good friends!?  I worked in public libraries for 30+ years, selected thousands of books for purchase.

How do professional librarians know what to choose?

Librarians are less swayed by Big Name and Big Author Following. We will buy a good book by an unknown author.  We do not buy from Amazon, or care about number of stars. We do not have time to follow blogs. Our job is to spend community tax dollars on the best for kids.

Very pragmatically librarians want:

book that has been reviewed in one of the credible sources: Booklist, Kirkhus

book we can order from main provider: Ingram, Baker& Taylor

books that will fit the demographics of the local community and compliment or update the collection

Beyond that:

We want a book that fills a need. All day long we get questions:

            Where are the books on Dinosaurs? Trucks? Princesses? Ponies?

            And harder ones like Telling a 4-year-old about a divorce. Or a toddler about a new baby.

            And the ever requested: toilet training.

2 We want a child-focused book. And in the format for the right age.

             Board books for age 0-2.

            Picture books naming objects for ages 1-4.

            Simple stories for ages 3-5.

We scramble for the catalogs and love to choose books with the hope that each of them will be checked out and loved for generations!