Children's Books discussion

We have over 4 thousand members! But fewer than 1% of that number participate regularly. If you prefer to lurk, that's just fine. But, would you like to participate more? What can we do to support that?

This group is for all you readers; how can we make it better for you?

I for one am missing the Fiction Club. Is it permanently on hiatus? Do you need someone to help run it?

And I know this is simply a question of posted threads, but lately, it feels as though many of the new topics are from the author's section. Nothing wrong with this, but sometimes it does feel as though I have to scroll down down down to find the club groups etc.

I know that previously, Abigail did some kind of a poll and made participation in the poll necessary and compulsory for members to keep being members (it had very simple questions, including being allowed to simply lurk). Not sure if you would want to go that way though, although it did get rid of a huge number of placeholders.

I'm often on other social media more frequently. Facebook mostly. I'll be trying to contribute more! I'm just learning how to use it better. :)

I'm just a lurker for now but still interested. What I need to participate more is more time in a day, week, month, etc. Which, sadly, you moderators cannot help with.

Hi Cheryl,
I am mostly a 'lurker'!

Apologies.

I am primarily on Goodreads as an author and reviewer. I am a member of (far too) many groups, the result of which being that I am inundated with notifications, invitations, discussion threads, etc etc, to the extent that I very often just skim through the updates - and probably miss a lot: my own fault entirely. As you, no doubt, know, authors have to work hard in accessing promotional opportunities - as well as find time to write!

Needless to say, Goodreads is not the only social platform across which I waltz (or should that be 'frenetically jig'?).

So, it's not that I'm not interested; I am just juggling too many things.

On a slightly different note, I am in the UK but I get the impression that members of a lot of Goodreads groups are in the US. This means that very often there's a long delay between replies and a loss of momentum in conversations.

Hope that's helpful.

I'm sorry. I want to participate and am trying to be on Goodreads more and learn more about how it all works. I think it has many more features than I am aware of. What happens is I don't always see a post and therefore don't respond. I'm in other groups and I tend to quickly go through the feed and see if there is a topic I am interested in. I will try to do better. Thank you for being here!

I am retired from teaching and subbing, so I don't have as direct involvement with children's books any more. I can't seem to give up reading them, though, so I still participate and I enjoy reading recommendations from others.

My new hobbies are writing music, going to lunch with friends, and Facebook. Who knew that retirement would be so busy...

I'm jealous, LauraW! :)
Enjoy your retirement, you worked for it!

LauraW wrote: "I am retired from teaching and subbing, so I don't have as direct involvement with children's books any more. I can't seem to give up reading them, though, so I still participate and I enjoy readin..."

I wish you could get those musicals you wrote performed big time. I would love to see them.

I’m a lurker, too, but am participating more. I spend most of my social media time on Facebook and Twitter, but I enjoy the Goodreads diversity.

I enjoy the group and reading posts, but I'm not a great talker. I'm happy with the group the way it is. When groups become too large or busy I become overwhelmed with notifications and tend to leave.

Hello,
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this group! I would like to participate and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to like I wish I could . I am just learning how to use goodreads and another reason I haven’t really participated is because I haven’t been reading the books for discussion. I am having a hard time getting a hold of the books needed for the discussions. I will try my best to get a hold of at least one of the books for the next discussion. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you once more .

I joined this group for ideas for books to get my 9 year old great granddaughter who loves to read, so I will be mostly lurking here.

Cynthia wrote: "Hello,
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this group! I would like to participate and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to like I wish I could . I am just learning how to use goodreads and anot..."

Checking local public libraries is what many of us do for the books and keeping our fingers crossed about availability. If I cannot find a book at the library, I will sometimes see if a used bookstore has a copy at a cheap price, or I will check online for usually used copies as they are often the cheapest.

To all of you wonderful people who have sent private messages, thank you! So many; I cannot answer them all individually.

One thing mentioned more than once there is that people are not aware of our book clubs. Apparently they have notifications blocked so as not to be overwhelmed? Maybe we should do periodic (quarterly?) broadcast messages reminding people of the next (several months of) reads?

Thank you all for your feedback here, too. No apology necessary for lurking or being busy! *If* you have any requests or suggestions, great. If not, that's great too.

But know that your warm responses are making my day. I feel thankful that we have this community.

Cheryl wrote: "To all of you wonderful people who have sent private messages, thank you! So many; I cannot answer them all individually.

One thing mentioned more than once there is that people are not aware of o..."

Good idea!

Hi, Cheryl and Everybody,

I used to be very active in this group, one of the more active members. Now I admit I don't even read the posts, but I would like to remain in the group. I keep thinking I will participate again.

I've dropped most of my groups and the ones I've kept I read posts in only 3 of them.

I do consider Goodreads my online home but I just don't have the time to do too much here, and unfortunately that includes groups.

So I'm not even really a lurker. I just want to be a group member. Maybe someday I will be an active one again. I didn't stop posting because of a problem with the group. It's just when I have free time I try to read books. :-) But I do miss it in here so maybe I'll try to follow some threads and make some contributions too. I have read some great children's books recently.

If I hadn't gotten the group broadcast pm I would not have even seen this thread.

I'm sorry. I just registered and I do not know how to use it. I am in Japan, I am not good at English and I can hardly read. The reason I signed up was because I wanted to know the English picture book with a high rating, because I bought an English picture book for my children.

Everyone please understand.
We love all members! Thank you for being here, even a little bit!

One other thing that Helen and some private messages have mentioned is the fact that the group seems US-centric. That is to say, we need to be more internationally relevant.

Now, the thing is that GoodReads itself is based in the US, and Kathryn and I also just happen to be in that same time zone, too. However, this is the only conversation in the entire group that is being held in anything close to real time, so I don't think the time zone factor is an issue.

What is an issue is that we don't have anyone to properly welcome people like Miho (message # 20, above). I wish we had team members who could write in more languages. If anyone who writes something other than English wants to volunteer to be 'on-call' in case of issues of inadequate communication, we'd love to put your name in a file.

More significantly, and yet more easily addressed, is international breadth in books. We moderators have been thinking about reviving the old International Club in which we read books in translation. Is there any interest in something like that?

Meanwhile, tomorrow (my time ;) I'll post some threads asking for titles of books that have been translated into English from various other languages. Any suggestions about how to set up that folder of threads are welcome.

Cheryl wrote: "One other thing that Helen and some private messages have mentioned is the fact that the group seems US-centric. That is to say, we need to be more internationally relevant.

Now, the thing is that..."

And a lot of times, non English as a first language members think their English is bad when it is not, when their English is great. I just read Miho's comment and his or her English is totally grammatically correct and flows very well (but ESL people are often incredibly hard on themselves for no reason, when they should be celebrating the fact that they are learning a second and sometimes even more than a second language).

Actually, back to the USA based nature of this group, one of the main issues I have had especially with regard to ILL and finding the older Newbery novels or Caldecott picture books is that other nations (even us here in Canada) obviously do not have the same libraries and library stock and ILL does generally not cross borders (and conversely, often, when I suggest a Canadian novel or picture book, unless it is a classic like AOGG, it is not that well known in the USA and thus will not get selected or even considered, understandable, but still a bit frustrating).

Cheryl wrote: "More significantly, and yet more easily addressed, is international breadth in books. We moderators have been thinking about reviving the old International Club in which we read books in translatio..."

Definitely, and may I suggest asking for potential volunteers from different countries to consider leading discussions.

I wonder if it might be a good idea to have different threads for different languages and different countries. Oh and for international books, we should also consider British, Canadian, Australian books etc.

Hi Cheryl,

My comment mirrors that of Helen L. I often find myself skimming the comments as I just don't have the time to read all of the notifications. I do apologize for not being active in the group. As an author, who is spread across many platforms, I find I am least active on Goodreads. It's something I need to work on as I do love this site for the book suggestions. I have appreciated the suggestions for books that this group has to offer.

Most of the books are not available in Germany or even translated into german. I only read comments that I find relate to me

I am interested in children's literature because I have 2 grandchildren. However they are French-speaking and rarely read books in English (or books in French for that matter, as far as I can see!) so my biggest interest is in international books.

Carol wrote: "I am interested in children's literature because I have 2 grandchildren. However they are French-speaking and rarely read books in English (or books in French for that matter, as far as I can see!)..."

So is mine to a point, particular German books, but often read French books to practice.

Vavita wrote: "Most of the books are not available in Germany or even translated into german. I only read comments that I find relate to me"

If and hopefully when we do the international club again, for any German book selected, of course you can (and in my opinion should) read them in the original German (that's what I usually do). But of course, all of the chosen and considered books for,the international club that are originally in a language other than English will absolutley need to have been translated into English.

I am also hoping to include some French Canadian childrens books that have been translated into English, or some dual-language offerings featuring Native American or Canadian tongues.

For some help finding dual-language books, please see this thread:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And Please Add to it!!

I actually cannot afford to get a book a month so the monthly read has to be available at the library. Then I tend to lag behind. By the time I'm ready to comment the group has moved on to another book.

Todd wrote: "I actually cannot afford to get a book a month so the monthly read has to be available at the library. Then I tend to lag behind. By the time I'm ready to comment the group has moved on to another ..."

I have had that as well, but the threads do remain open after the official monthly read has finished (I have commented months, even years later).

Cheryl wrote: "Thank you all for your feedback here, too. No apology necessary for lurking or being busy! *If* you have any requests or suggestions, great. If not, that's great too.

But know that your warm resp..."
Hi Cheryl, I'm new to all of this with discussions. Am I allowed to give someone the information on my published children's books? I filed out the information for author page but it hasn't updated yet.

The rules for this group are to create a thread to talk about your book in the Promotional folder. Other groups may have different rules.

Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving

Cheryl wrote: "We have over 4 thousand members! But fewer than 1% of that number participate regularly. If you prefer to lurk, that's just fine. But, would you like to participate more? What can we do to support ..."

i check in now and then to see if books from the 40s 50s and 60s are being highlighted b/c i am trying to find an illustrator of an oriental myth picture book from that era. thanks for this group and for letting me lurk and Happy Thanksgiving.

HI! Cheryl,
i would like to participate but my obligations at school and my current position don't allow me to participate as much as I would like, If there is any way to do that by doing something small then that's ok with me, Thank you.

Hi Cheryl,
I apologise for not participating more but have fallen into the writers dilemna of when writing I tend to shut other things out, I will attempt to make amends for this in the future.
Thank you for keeping everyone motivated

In the interests of global outreach, I have begun to create a folder. Please, if you know anything at all about the cultures and languages of the different regions of the world, I need help!
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I’ve been trying to find a happy balance between all of my platforms. As for this month, I’ve been knee deep in my first attempt at NaNoWriMo so that’s where most of my energy has gone.

I have neglected this area of my social media and should participate more. I will try to do so moving forward as I learn more about using Goodreads effectively.

I'm still here but running in circles and trying to catch up with myself! I read all of the comments and love our group. I appreciate all the wise knowledge from our moderator. So, yes, I'm still breathing and definitely have a continued interest in this amazing group.

Hello,
I read what has been posted I just don't have anything to say just yet. Also try to visit gr everyday but, also in process of writing two more picture books and publishing a second picture book.

Hi! I'm interested but yes, I've never participated. Partly because of time and other commitments but also because when I have checked often the book selections are older ones. I love those too but for my job (Youth Services Librarian) it would be more helpful to read and discuss new ones. I've been doing this a long time and the older titles are ones I am already familiar with.

The Picture-Book Club generally has a mix of old and new, overall.
The Newbery Club, naturally, is working through the older titles.
But:
The Miscellaneous Club and
The Fiction Club are both more interested in somewhat newer titles.

Valuable input, we'll see what we can do to make sure we look at new books, too. Maybe something like a "does it live up to the hype/ does it have staying power" folder for threads for new books?

What about alternating older titles and newer titles every other month? Once I participated with a newer title that grabbed my attention and made connections with members of the group, I would be much more likely to be hooked for the following month. Or maybe two separate groups? Good luck and thanks for asking for our input!

Jenna wrote: "Hi! I'm interested but yes, I've never participated. Partly because of time and other commitments but also because when I have checked often the book selections are older ones. I love those too but..."

Jenna, are you familiar with these two groups on GoodReads?: Mock Caldecott 2018 and Mock Newbery 2018. Both groups are dedicated to discussing possible award winners for the current year.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

I recently joined Goodreads when I published my book, so I'm still learning how to use it. I also have a full time daycare business that I run out of my home, so time is very limited for me:) But, when I do get a chance to be on Goodreads, I love reading all the comments and try to respond when it's relevant to me or something I feel I can contribute to the conversation.

Cheryl wrote: "The Picture-Book Club generally has a mix of old and new, overall.
The Newbery Club, naturally, is working through the older titles.
But:
The Miscellaneous Club and
The Fiction Club are both more i..."

I wonder if with the fiction club, we could do as we did with the former incarnation of the same and vaccinate between older (classic) children's novels and newer novels (as I certainly would not be interested in only reading and discussing newer books).

I do like that idea, Gundula. I have opened the question in the moderator's group.