2007 Edgar Mystery Award -Juvenile and Young Adult

The winner of the 2007 best juvenile mystery went to Room One by Andrew Clements. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Illus by Chris Blair.

and the winner of the 2007 Edgar award for best young adult mystery went to:

Buried by Robin Merrow MacCready. NY: Dutton, 2006.

(I need to catch up on my reading, I did not know of either of these titles before the award announcement.)

even as x-libris

Another good book to scout is Tony Hillerman's only children's book, The Boy Who Made Dragonfly: A Zuni Myth. Harper & Row, 1972. Illustrated By Laszlo Kubinyi.

(This one has an ISBN # so you will have to grab fast or fight the Scoutpal users for it.)

Genre Collecting- Juvenile Mysteries

I was visiting with another children's book specialist the other day and we were doing the usual free association book natter, the topic being the books that seem to be most sought by collectors in the juvenile mystery genre. The list below does not cover the series books (Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden etc.) and is by no means complete:

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. (This book won the Newbery Award and is probably my single most requested mystery title.)

Enid Blyton's Fabulous Five stories, especially from the 1940's and 1950's. Published by Hodder Stoughton. (My dealer friend is from the UK, I'm not sure these were even published in the U.S., though I remember reading them in California in the 60's.)

Elizabeth Honness. Her books were all "Mystery of" Mystery of the Secret Message, Mystery of the Maya Jade etc. Mostly published by Lippincott.

Phyllis Whitney wrote juveniles, including juvenile mysteries, as well as adult mystery/romances. She won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for juvenile mystery in 1961 for Mystery of the Haunted Pool and in 1964 for Mystery of the Hidden Hand. Whitney's juvenile mysteries were published by Westminster Press which sold almost exclusively to libraries, so finding first edition or even early edition of her mysteries that are not library discard is a major feat.

As I said, this is mostly an off the top of my head observation based on personal experience, not on market research. The flaw with working this way is that it tends to be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy; these are some of the books I loved growing up, so I scout them as a dealer and find collectors who share the same interest.

Where the Wild Things Are Auction Price Realized

From the July 12th auction at the PBA Galleries, this copy of Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are had fetched $6900. (This is less than I thought, I know of copies that have reached the $10,000 range.)

The Little House Auction Price Realized

The July 12th auction at the PBA Galleries not only had a first in dust jacket of Curious George but also this beautiful first edition in dust jacket of Virgina Lee Burton's The Little House. The auction price realized was $9775.00. (I specialize in children's books and have been a full time dealer since 1994 and have never seen a first edition of this book.)

Oh, The Places You'll Go

There is a very active group of collectors for all Dr. Seuss material, both books and ephemera, but Oh, The Places You'll Go is the single title that I have the most requests for from the non-collectors market. The number of requests increases each spring with the school graduation season.

even as x-libris

With a nod both to the legion of series collectors and my own childhood memories:

Robert Arthur's Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle. NY: Random House, 1964. Issued without a dust jacket. This is the first book written in The Three Investigator's juvenile mystery series.

(I loved this series as a kid and judging from the large number of fan sites I'm not the only one who remembers it fondly.)