I think I spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about children’s books.
I find myself bringing up the stories I read with Baby in everyday conversation with my friends and before I can stop myself, I’ve started telling people about Octave, the little bear who couldn’t say ‘yes’*. And of course, once I’ve started talking, I can’t just cut out mid-conversation so I find myself talking and talking while in my head I’m shouting ‘Mission Abort! Mission Abort! You are the only person who cares!’
So I created a blog.
After all, isn’t that the point of blogs? Aren’t they all just an outlet for people like me who have interests that my friends have tired of hearing about?
Well it turns out I’m not alone, in any case.
There may not be as many children’s books blogs as there are music blogs but it seems there are still a number of bloggers who have beat me to the punch when it comes to this topic.
Which was inevitable, really, given the sheer number of blogs in the blogosphere. In today’s web, where there are over 200,000 fans of Facebook pages like ‘If Mr Bean was in Twilight he would look like this’, there is always going to be someone who has had your idea first.
(In case you were wondering)
Which I don’t mind- in fact, I think it’s great. It’s all to do with Chris Anderson’s theory of the Long Tail which basically explains the commercialisation of the internet by demonstrating that even though a few sites may dominate the market in any particular topic, there is also an ever-increasing number of much smaller sites which are arguably of equal importance.
It’s all about demand. In non-internet terms, it’s the process of people going from shopping at Coles for all their groceries to going to cupcake cafes like Little Cupcakes or a vegan fast food joint like Lord of the Fries in Melbourne.
Mmm, anyone else hungry? Oh, I digress.
The point is, you don’t need to have a lowest common denominator approach to make a blog work anymore because the internet allows people with the same interests to find each other and talk until their heart’s content about Octave and his difficulties saying yes*.
Take We Heart Books for example. We Heart Books is run by two mums from Melbourne and in much the same fashion as Harlot’s Web, is designed to help readers choose books for the “little people” in their lives.
My favourite part of We Heart Books is their world tour of children’s bookstores, which includes some incredible bookshops like this one in Beijing
The blog is linked to a website which sells books and other merchandise but it is so well designed, I can’t hold anything against them for using the blog as advertising. Plus, the books they review really are great books so although they do stand to gain from writing favorable reviews about books they sell, their blog also offers readers a lot more than just reviews.
The design of We Heart Books is also impeccable- very easy to navigate with categories and archives and I have mentioned before, I am always a fan of websites with Scandinavian-esque designs.
The other blog I wanted to just quickly bring up is Seafarer’s Children’s Books. This blog was set up in April this year and doesn’t look like it is going to be adding much more content but it is a great example of niche blogging within a niche.
As the title suggests, Seafarer’s Children’s Books is for Seafarer’s Children. It’s basically a list of 10 books which are all dedicated to the same topic. They are each explained in great detail, including the background of the authors, illustrators and publishers and contact details are provided for those wanting further information.
So with that, I will leave you to peruse the many links I seem to have embedded today but as always, please leave any comments/suggestions you have in the comments section below!
*For anyone wondering, I’m talking about a cute little French book I found during the week called Non, Non et Non! by Mireille d’Allancé- Baby doesn’t speak French but she loves shouting Non! with me while I read
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