New Survey: Do you Plan to Buy The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure?

At the Little House on the Prairie forum I belong to, we've been talking about The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure.

This book is due to be released on April 14th and is already available for pre-order from Amazon.

Here is the product description from Amazon:

Wendy McClure is on a quest to find the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder — a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places McClure has never been to yet somehow knows by heart. She traces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family—looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a prairie hailstorm in South Dakota. She immerses herself in all things Little House — exploring the story from fact to fiction, and from the TV shows to the annual summer pageants in Laura’s hometowns. Whether she’s churning butter in her apartment or sitting in a replica log cabin, McClure is always in pursuit of “the Laura experience.” Along the way she comes to understand how Wilder’s life and work have shaped our ideas about girlhood and the American West. The Wilder Life is a loving, irreverent, spirited tribute to a series of books that have inspired generations of American women. It is also an incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, and a story about what happens when we reconnect with our childhood touchstones — and find that our old love has only deepened.

Publisher's Weekly gave The Wilder Life a starred review, saying, "Readers don't need to be Wilder fans to enjoy this funny and thoughtful guide to a romanticized version of the American expansion west."

Our new survey asks if you plan to purchase a copy of the book. I will be adding this to my Laura Ingalls Wilder collection. How about you?

New Book about Laura Ingalls Wilder Due out in 2010

According to the Janaury 12, 2009 issue of Publisher's Weekly, Riverhead--a division of Penguin Group--has acquired the rights to Wendy McClure's new book, The Wilder Life. It's a first person narrative that explores Laura's life and work.

The author made a brief mention of the book at her blog, which you'll find here.

I love it when I get a chance to add to my Laura Ingalls Wilder collection!

What Would Laura Think of the CPSIA?

While modern-day issues don't often make their way onto these pages, I think about all of Laura's fans and all the wonderful TV shows, movies, and theater productions that have come about as a result of the Little House books, and can only wonder what Laura might have thought about this law if it were enacted when she was an aspiring author.

Children's author, Elysabeth Eldering--whose State of Wilderness, Book 1 of the Junior Geography Detective Squad series I reviewed here--turned me on to information regarding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) that President Bush signed into law in August 2008.

Publisher's Weekly has written an article about the negative impact to the children's book industry that compliance with this law will ultimately bring.

CPSIA can only be described as a law where good intentions have gone astray. Instead of targeting the true culprits--toy manufacturers whose products manufactured overseas have been recalled due to lead content and small parts unsafe for children--this ill-written law will cover "all consumer products intended for use by children 12 and under. That includes books, audiobooks and sidelines, no matter where they are manufactured, even though most books have lead levels that are well below the Act’s most stringent safety standards."

According to the Publisher's Weekly article, "The CPSIA dictates that each children’s book SKU, shipped to retailers, catalogues and e-commerce sites as of February 10 must have been tested by a third-party lab to ensure that lead levels are below 600 parts per million. (Acceptable levels drop to 300 ppm in August and 100 ppm in 2011.) Some books also must be tested for phthalates, an acid used to soften plastic. The importer or domestic manufacturer must provide a Certificate of Conformity (usually posted on the Internet), and the product must be labeled appropriately. Older products on shelf must fall within acceptable safety standards but do not need to be accompanied by a Certificate, according to recent comments by the Consumer Products Safety Commission."

This translates into a huge additional cost for publishers; and if we think the book industry has seen a lull in this tough economy, just wait until February 10, 2009 when all these products are required to be tested.

Vivian Zabel of 4RV Publishing has provided the names and address of committee and subcommittee leaders on her Brain Cells & Bubble Wrap blog. These leaders have the ability to call for hearings on the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and advance critical legislation to resolve some of the issues.

Please consider writing letters to these four men to express your concerns about the CPSIA as it is currently written.

Don't let good intentions gone astray squelch the dreams of aspiring children's authors. Don't let an ill-written law put small publishers out of business. Write your letter today!