21.01.14 | Charlotte Eyre - The Bookseller“We think of Penguin as the first of a new kind of publisher and our mission is educating and entertaining children,” Dow told her audience. But while she acknowledged that Penguin Children’s has undergone a radical transformation by merging with Random House Children's Publishers, the 2014 showcase was not the time to discuss the changes ahead, she said.
Classic brands will see a revival at Penguin Children’s this year, as both Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar have significant anniversaries in 2014.
For the 50th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka, Penguin published anniversary edition with “golden ticket” covers earlier this month (p/b, £12.99), and in September will release a book about the history of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, written by journalist Lucy Mangan.
Mangan said the book Inside Charlie’s Chocolate Factory: The Complete Story of Willie Wonka, the Golden Ticket and Roald Dahl’s Most Famous Creation, which will be released in September (p/b, £20), is aimed at adult fans who remember reading Charlie… as a child. Curious nuggets of information included the fact that the name Willie Wonka comes for a Boomerang called Skilly Wonka Dahl had a child, and that Dahl’s original manuscripts show that Dahl’s handwriting sped up when he got to particularly interesting sections, such as describing the chewing gum machine.
Douglas Hodge, who is currently playing Willie Wonka in the West End musical, has recorded a new audiobook, which will be available on iTunes on the 30th January.
Mangan was one of several authors talking about their upcoming books; Lauren Child presented the picture book A New Small Person, which will launch in September (h/b, £11.99), and comedian David O’Doherty, whose spoof handbook for avoiding danger, Danger is Everywhere (£9.99) created with illustrator Chris Judge, will launch in August.
This year is also the 45th anniversary of Ladybird’s Hungry Caterpillar brand, which came into life with The Very Hungry Caterpillar book from Eric Carle in 1969. Penguin will mark the event with retail partnerships and events in both the UK and the US.
Penguin also revealed that it is launching a game based on Charlie Higson’s YA horror book The Enemy. The game, created in partnership with games developer Daredevil, will launch on Apple in March. Other brand developments include Peter Rabbit toys, thanks to a licence agreement with Vivid Imaginations, and toys and clothes to go with a new BBC Topsy and Tim programme.
For the YA audience, Penguin is redesigning the covers for the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead, to align the books with the film that is coming out in the spring. It is also putting its full promotional heft behind Half Bad, the supernatural thriller from debut author Sally Green, released in March (p/b, £7.99), while a film tie-in edition of John Green’s The Fault in our Stars (£7.99) will be out in May.
Meanwhile among new voices, Penguin is publishing Dandelion Clocks by Rebecca Westcott, a story about a family coping with terminal illness, in March (pb, £6.99). In April, it is releasing Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek, written by teen author Maya Van Wagenen (pb, £7.99).
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