Momo celebrating time to read: Christmas Book Shopping Catalogues

Friday, December 1, 2023

Christmas Book Shopping Catalogues

I have had this idea before - to collect the catalogues of book shops in my city and compare their children's book recommendations.

Here is a quote from my previous post (2019):

I enjoy comparing the books for children which the shops are promoting. Shops in this city mostly list titles that are already popular with children and well known to their parents. It would be so good to see them extending these choices to showcase other books that really deserve to be discovered by young readers. We speak English in Australia so we can offer our children the very best books from so many countries - USA, UK, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa.

In her library newsletter, a friend of mine who works as the Teacher-Librarian in a large independent school explains this idea further. The newsletter details the top ten titles taken from best seller lists and she says: "See nothing you don't already know, all popular books by well-known authors, but the good thing about our school library is that you can find books that you won't know as well as these, books that will enlighten and amaze you." If your child borrows a book from the library which is not on this list and and they enjoy it why not look for others in the series or other books by the same author. Perhaps one of these 'other' books might be the treasure you purchase for Christmas.

What do I see in the Christmas catalogues? The children's books are generally on the final pages, often they are only featured on one or two pages so I need to say congratulations to Better Read than Dead who have a complete catalogue of 23 pages just for children!

In the interests of disclosure these are the shop catalogues I've collected: Abbeys, Dymocks, Gleebooks, Harry Hartog, Kinokuniya, Booktopia, Better Read than Dead, and the Kids' Reading Guide which is produced by the Australian Booksellers Association.