Usborne talking about the business of publishing children's books at MPH 1Utama, Petaling Jaya.

“Children suddenly become much more interesting when your wife says you are expecting after three years of waiting.” This is what Peter Usborne, founder of Usborne Publishing, said at his talk on Sunday at MPH, 1Utama.

For many other dads-to-be this would mean getting ready to have a child, supporting your wife and learning all about babies.

For Usborne, it meant walking over to his boss' office and telling him he wanted a job to do with children. A few years later, after many promotions, he got a loan from the bank, guaranteed by that employer, to start his own company.

That's basically how Usborne Publishing was born in 1973.

Although he went into children's books because he was a father, he didn't do children's books for his own children. However, Usborne admits to occasionally discussing his books with his children. His daughter is now a successful publisher with Scholastic Inc and his son is a photographer.
 

Usborne: 'We are proud that we do have some Asian stories in our reading series.'

Usborne, 72, is now a grandfather to two lovely children, with one more on the way.

He proudly says that, although there are no real numbers to prove it, Usborne is the biggest publisher of children's books in colour in the world.

The reading series, which has been much publicised by MPH Bookstores this year, consists of the Very First Reading books, then the four levels of First Reading and three levels of Young Reading books. Among the stories in these books are the familiar classics like Wizard of Oz and King Arthur as well as some Asian tales.

“We are proud that we do have some Asian stories in our reading series like The Dragon Painter, The Emperor and the Nightingale and one or two others. We would like to have more and I was only asking last night for Malaysia's stories and I got a list of some stories (including Hang Tuah, Puteri Gunung Ledang and Mahsuri).

“I'm taking this back to London and discussing if any of these stories would make a nice book in the English language. When we do Asian stories the British bookstores like it – that, to them, is trendy and modern because of the global economy. They think it's a good thing to do non-European stories so we try to include Asian stories as often as we can find them. However, they don't always make very convincing books in English,” said Usborne.

Parents are crucial

He agrees that parental input is very important and that's why the Usborne Very First Reading series has one part which is to be read by the parent (with smaller font and more words) followed by the part to be read by the child (just three words which have only one syllable).

He agrees that for small children, parents can't just buy a book and pass it to the child. The parents need to read the books with the children.

Usborne says that despite the fact that children today have many more distractions to prevent them from reading books, the sale of children's books is still rising in most countries around the world.

“It's an extremely good business and it's probably because more and more mothers are university educated and therefore have much higher literary aspirations for their children. There's a whole new generation of mothers who have been to university which 30, 40 years ago would not have been the case and these mothers are typically not having their first child until they're around 35.

“They know how important books are for their children. So, it may not be a question of persuading the children to pick up the book but persuading the adult to pick up the book. Adults are hungry for good children's books like never before. Adults know that they need to provide good books for their children to give them a chance of getting ahead in life.

“The other thing that is driving them to buy more children's books is the fact that most mothers now work. If you are a working mother you probably feel a bit guilty about neglecting your child and you worry a bit that they may be watching too much television because you haven't got time to talk to them. So you want to assuage your guilt. How do you assuage your guilt plus satisfy your university aspirations for intellectual food for your children? You buy more children's books,” he says.

Usborne says children are his equals and he does not believe in talking down to them.

He says his books have a special tone of voice as they treat children as adults.

What would he advise parents who are out buying books for their children - what should they look for?

“Usborne!” he quips before bursting into laughter.

“Quality, but never, never bore the children. There are plenty of very boring children's books. However, children's books have been getting much better in the last 10 or 15 years generally. There is an incredible amount of talent now because of (J.K. Rowling's) Harry Potter (books) and because of Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series) now being bigger than any adult publisher. Suddenly children's books is a furnace of talent and of investment. Money and talent is pouring into children's books. Children's books are getting much, much better very quickly and much less boring.

“So parents don't need to worry that much.

“I would, if I were buying books for children, look for humour, friendliness, stylish pictures, a lot of colour and I'd read the text to see whether it's immediately acceptable or whether it's using concepts and words that children might not recognise.

“I think parents can be pretty encouraged that the standard of children's books worldwide has been rising very quickly and it is now THE hot area of book publishing generally. Everybody wants to be in children's books because everybody can see JK Rowling making millions of pounds,” he adds.

With children preferring vibrant-looking colourful books, are parents wasting their time keeping their own books from childhood for their children to one day read?

“No! You should keep your books for your children. There are incredible old children's classics. If you like something, your child will very quickly pick up your preferences. There's no question that the mother and father are more than able to infuse their children with this. If you find that children's books that you had as a child are still on your shelf, I would have a jolly good show of trying to persuade your children that they're still good because they are,” he enthuses.

Usborne was in Kuala Lumpur for a three-day visit to promote his books at the MPH Bookstores.