Articles Tagged with Books

139391_a_boy_a_girl_and_a_bookThe Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) is punishing the children’s publishing industry. Go over to Publishers Weekly to read their summary of the disruption caused by the mandate that all products targeted at children under 12 be tested for lead and phthalates.

The law was passed in response to issues with Chinese toys – but it was written in such a broad fashion that it is sweeping into its net products that have never included lead or plastics (like paper and cardboard).

The problem is that the industry just found out in November that it applies to books and they have to be in compliance by February. Violations carry stiff fines which could bury small publishers.

Sometimes in the rush to finish a chapter on deadline or to get six copies to Paducah by Friday we loose sight of the essence of what we are doing.

ZenBook
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietanmese monk, writing about how everything is connected expressed it this way:

When you look at this sheet of paper, you think it belongs to the realm of being. There was a time that it came into existence, a moment in the factory it became a sheet of paper. But before the sheet of paper was born, was it nothing? Can nothing become something? Before it was recognizable as a sheet of paper, it must have been something else – a tree, a branch, sunshine, clouds, the earth. In its former life, the sheet of paper was all these things. If you ask the sheet of paper, “Tell me about your adventures,” she will tell you, “Talk to a flower, a tree, or a cloud and listen to their stories.”*