Bess Press

Bess Press

Think trop­i­cal … island nations, high and low islands.  Feel the sun’s warmth, the stir of a gen­tle breeze clat­ter­ing palm fronds high over­head.  Escape win­ter, cold, snow, white, ice. How?  In a book.  Open one of the many books pub­lished by Bess Press, one of the first inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers locat­ed in Hon­olu­lu.  Their books cov­er his­to­ry and cul­ture, war and peace in the Pacif­ic, the many cul­tures of Poly­ne­sia, Microne­sia (mean­ing small islands, there are over 10,000 islands in Microne­sia) and Melane­sia (the dark islands).
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Heartdrum

Heartdrum

We are so pleased to have this oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­view the two women behind Harper­Collins’ new Native-focused imprint, Heart­drum: Rose­mary Bros­nan, vice pres­i­dent and edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor at Harper­Collins Chil­dren’s Books, and Cyn­thia Leitich Smith, chil­dren’s and YA author, writ­ing instruc­tor, and blogger. Let’s learn more …
Rose­mary and Cyn­thia, you have worked togeth­er for more than 20 years, cor­rect?
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Nomad Press

Nomad Press

Andi Diehn (pho­to: Bob Eddy) For teach­ers, par­ents and any­one look­ing for “school-at-home” non­fic­tion books, Nomad Press is an excel­lent resource for activ­i­ty-based non­fic­tion books. With Nomad’s infor­ma­tion­al series, stu­dents not only “read about” impor­tant top­ics of our times but also inves­ti­gate, “ask about” and “do about” these topics. First I tried out sev­er­al of their books. I found excel­lent infor­ma­tion com­bined with engag­ing activ­i­ties and chal­leng­ing ques­tions. 
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Pinata Books

Arte Público Press

Piña­ta Books Are Full of Surprises! Arte Públi­co Press uses the delight­ful metaphor of piña­ta to describe its imprint of bi-lin­gual Span­ish-Eng­lish books for chil­dren — full of delights and full of surprises.
Sur­prise #1 — Arte Públi­co Press is the orig­i­nal pub­lish­er of San­dra Cis­neros’ sem­i­nal The House on Man­go Street. To fur­ther bring His­pan­ic lit­er­a­ture to main­stream audi­ences, “Arte Públi­co Press launched the Recov­er­ing the US His­pan­ic Lit­er­ary Her­itage Pro­gram in 1992.
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Telephone Tales

Enchanted Lion

I am enchant­ed … with the fresh, delight­ful, and imag­i­na­tive books pub­lished by this inde­pen­dent pub­lish­er. Their doors opened in 2003 and even dur­ing these tumul­tuous times, their doors have stayed open and their vision has stayed strong. Enchant­ed Lion Books come from a diver­si­ty of sources and voic­es that have been under-rep­re­sent­ed, trans­lat­ed books from oth­er coun­tries and cul­tures, and inter­na­tion­al illus­tra­tions that are unusu­al and cap­ti­vat­ing.
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Magination Press

Look­ing for a book for a child who is expe­ri­enc­ing a hard time — maybe being bul­lied, maybe par­ents are divorc­ing or some­one is seri­ous­ly ill, or some­thing scary hap­pened at school or in the com­mu­ni­ty. Or maybe a teen feels “dif­fer­ent”? Mag­i­na­tion Press is a book imprint of the Amer­i­can Psy­chol­o­gy Asso­ci­a­tion that — through books — helps fam­i­lies, par­ents, and chil­dren cope with emo­tion­al, learn­ing, or behav­ioral challenges.… more
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Nature's Friend

Sleeping Bear Press

A is for Alphabet! Sleeping Bear Press is known for their intriguing and informational alphabet books. But Sleeping Bear also produces a variety of both nonfiction and fiction books for readers young and not so young.
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Native Realities

Native Realities

A lit­er­ary super­hero him­self and an indige­nous leg­endary com­ic cre­ator, a pro­po­nent of Native Pop Cul­ture, and cre­ator of a new Native pub­lish­ing ven­ture, I am excit­ed to intro­duce to you Dr. Lee Fran­cis IV and his pub­lish­ing house, Native Real­i­ties. What kind of press is this? Think Comics, books, inter­ac­tive. Native Amer­i­can authors and artists. Think Indige­nous Com­ic Con.… more
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Penny Candy Books

Imag­ine walk­ing into an old-time dry-goods store.  Hear the wood­en floor squeak.  Peer through the glass case at the won­drous dis­play of pen­ny can­dy.  Close your eyes and taste your favorite … root beer bar­rels,  red-wax lips, ropes of red licorice. Instead of sug­ary sweets, Pen­ny Can­dy Books offers a selec­tion of books that delight, engage, and chal­lenge. … more
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Kathryn Otoshi

Blue Dot Press | KO Kids Books

Meet Kathryn Oto­shi, artist, author, edu­ca­tor, and the cre­ator of two award-win­ning indie pub­lish­ing com­pa­nies, KO Kids Books and Blue Dot Press. In 2016, SCBWI (Soci­ety of Children’s Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors) rec­og­nized Blue Dot Press with their SPARK Award for excel­lence in inde­pen­dent publishing. Kathryn O’s books are bright, col­or­ful, delight­ful, cre­ative, and just plain fun.… more
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Catalyst Press

Catalyst Press

Cat­a­lyst Press has a bold and dar­ing mission.  As a new inde­pen­dent press, Cat­a­lyst Press brings to Amer­i­can read­ers books from the African con­ti­nent writ­ten by Africans and/or about Africa, con­tem­po­rary and his­tor­i­cal. One of Catalyst’s first books is the star­tling graph­ic nov­el, Sha­ka Ris­ing: A Leg­end of the War­rior Prince.  It is writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Luke W.… more
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Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Engag­ing.  Diverse. Page-turn­ers. Spir­i­tu­al.  Sur­prise! Gen­tle. Com­pas­sion. Old – over 100 years old! and Classic. Wm. B. Eerd­mans Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny has been, and still is, an inde­pen­dent, fam­i­ly-owned pub­lish­er since 1911. Their new imprint—Eerd­mans Books for Young Read­ers—began in 1995 and has been pro­duc­ing over a dozen new children’s books each year.  Each year many of their books are top award-winners.… more
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Groundwood Books

Ground­wood Books cel­e­brates diver­si­ty. In the words of the late Sheila Bar­ry, for­mer pub­lish­er, their com­mit­ment is to pub­lish “the most excit­ing Cana­di­an voic­es we can find. Whether it’s a pic­ture book from Nunavut in the Arc­tic or a Car­ni­val sto­ry about a new Cana­di­an from the Caribbean ….”  Ground­wood pub­lish­es not only all things Cana­di­an but much more — sto­ries about First Nations peo­ple, refugees, chil­dren caught in the ter­ror of war, the grief felt by immi­grants as well as the gift of their expe­ri­ences and tal­ents they bring to their new coun­try.… more
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Pomelo Books

What do a uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor from Dal­las and a lawyer from Prince­ton have in common? Both are pas­sion­ate about poet­ry, specif­i­cal­ly, poet­ry in the class­room for every­one, every­day, and about any­thing, even alge­bra. Sylvia Vardell, pro­fes­sor and author of edu­ca­tion­al books for teach­ers, and Janet Wong, lawyer and author of sev­er­al dozen books for chil­dren, com­bined their knowl­edge and poet­ry pas­sion and cre­at­ed Pome­lo Books.… more
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Cinco Puntos Press

Con­tro­ver­sy and noto­ri­ety were not the rea­sons that Bob­by Byrd and Lee Mer­rill Byrd began their own pub­lish­ing house, Cin­co Pun­tos Press. They believed in giv­ing voice to ideas, issues, and writ­ers whose voic­es need­ed to be heard.  In 1999, Cin­co Pun­tos pub­lished the book The Sto­ry of Col­ors / La His­to­ria de los col­ores writ­ten by Sub­co­man­dante Mar­cos, the leader of the Zap­atista Army of Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion in Mex­i­co.… more
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