Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Enchanted Lion Books is a small, family-owned children’s book publisher based in Brooklyn, NY. We believe in the enduring value of picture books, especially those with a bold individual perspective that give us stories which not only engage and educate, but also shape who we become.
Enchanted Lion Books was established in 2003 by Peter Bedrick, his wife Muriel, and Claudia and Abigail Bedrick. The decision to start a family publishing company arose from a shared passion for children’s books. The founding idea was to publish innovative nonfiction for older readers. With the passing of Peter Bedrick in 2004, the vision for the company began to change, and in 2006 we published our first picture book – Prince Silencio by the Belgian author/illustrator Anne Herbauts. Our decision to put greater focus on picture books had as much to do with our appreciation of beautiful illustration as with our desire to give wider exposure to unusual and delightful books from other countries. So far we have published books from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Germany, and in 2011 we will publish our first picture book from Japan.
Since January 2009, Claudia Bedrick has been the company’s publisher and editorial director. Muriel Bedrick remains with the company as does Millicent Fairhurst, our Production Director. Now in our eighth year, Enchanted Lion is finishing its best year ever. We started the year with a new distributor (Consortium) and have been strongly supported by a wonderful group of knowledgeable sales and marketing people. In late January we received the good news that our title Big Wolf and Little Wolf (originally published in France) had been selected as a Batchelder honor book, one of the only picture books ever to receive this distinction. By spring, Seasons by Blexbolex and The Chicken Thief by Béatrice Rodriguez were receiving starred reviews, and in the autumn our reissue of James Flora’s 1957 book The Day the Cow Sneezed and our original title Emma’s Journey began to generate a strong, positive response as well. Then in November Seasons was selected as one of the ten best-illustrated books of the year by The New York Times, and thanks to Seasons and The Day the Cow Sneezed we were invited to participate in the amazing Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival.
Blexbolex’s Seasons has proven to be a true crossover title, enthusiastically received within the children’s book world, but also by places as diverse as the Paul Smith clothing store and Desert Island Comics in Williamsburg. This has particularly pleased us, as it connects to our belief that picture books serve as a vital resource for readers of all ages, revealing the world in a way that isn’t matched or duplicated by anything else. As a unique space in which words and images meet, they are like life itself, containing at their best all that is richest and most worthwhile.
As we move into the future, we will continue to publish daring and unusual books from authors and illustrators in the US and from around the world. In 2011, we will publish our first non-illustrated book from the Netherlands, which will be a novel for children, ages 9-12. This book will be an exciting departure for us, as well as the beginning of a new direction. We also will reissue further books by the awe-inspiring James Flora, and we will continue in this direction by publishing other out-of-print classics.
And since our editorial policy has always been to commit to the authors and illustrators whose work we take up, we will continue to publish books by Blexbolex, Béatrice Rodriguez, Olivier Tallec, Nadine Brun-Cosme, Chen Jiang Hong, Grace Chang, Claire Frossard, Wouter van Reek, and Anne Herbauts, so that over time our readers can share in the vision of these unusually talented, passionate, and emotionally astute creators.