business and confirm our belief in the importance of keeping children reading, whatever the circumstances.


successes we’ve seen with our books that have directly commented on world events, published over the course of the past few turbulent years in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, the #MeToo movement, Greta Thunberg’s environmental campaigns and the war in Ukraine. Ashok Banker and Sandhya Prabhat’s I Am Brown, beloved by so many readers, has been reprinted more times than I can remember. Anita and the Dragons about a migrant family was a Barnes & Noble bookseller pick and sold in every bookshop across America. Our non-fiction titles, Peace and Me, celebrating Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, and Escape: One Day We Had to Run, shining a spotlight on refugees around the world, were both selected by the New York City Department of Education as set texts across the New York school district.


Challenges Though, as for any small business, life is not without its challenges. The Covid years were on the one hand a difficult, anxious period in which the personal needs of our team took precedence over the growth of our business, while on the other, ushered in a period of transformation that has ultimately allowed us to adapt the way we do


We continue to struggle for shelf space in all but a handful of our favourite independent bookshops, and need to compete with mainstream houses for review space and recognition. Rising living costs have affected the price of paper, energy, and almost every aspect of production, and yet we’re loath to pass these increases on to our customers at such a challenging time in our history. Our team, while more passionate and dedicated than I could possibly have hoped for, are often stretched to their limits trying to manage demand in an industry where low margins punish those who value quality above quantity. That said, our dedicated authors, our hard-working team, our legions of loyal fans, and the children who read our books and who might just see themselves in a story for the first time, continue to make the general running of Lantana a joy, and I firmly believe that the challenges we face can only make us stronger.


Looking ahead This season, we are celebrating motherhood in all its guises with debut Samantha Hawkins and Cory Reid’s My Mummy Marches celebrating the power of peaceful protest, and Gareth Peter and Izzy Evans’ My Mummies Built A Treehouse following a young boy as he builds his dream treehouse with the help of his two mums. Watch Me Bloom, by returning author-illustrator Krina Patel- Sage, celebrates the joys of spring flowers with a set of beautifully-illustrated haiku poems, and a new import from Norway, written by celebrated poet Trygve Skaug, illustrated by Ella Okstad and translated by Rosie Hedger, will burst onto the British children’s literature scene with the hilarious If I Were Prime Minister – a book we might all take a few notes from with the general election looming next year.


Summer brings us the anticipated second


novels in our two new middle grade series, The Bollywood Academy and The Intasimi Warriors, both launched with much fanfare last year. Melody Queen introduces us to music-obsessed Simi who has to navigate the gender barriers of the industry if she wants to fulfil her dreams of becoming Bollywood’s next big music composer, and Odwar vs. the Shadow Queen takes us on a rollercoaster ride of emotions as Odwar attempts to battle the queen of the shadow world as well as his own inner demons in order to save the world from catastrophe.


Finally, a look ahead to our autumn season. As the nights begin to draw in, we can snuggle up around the fire with


Spring-Summer 2023 PEN&INC. 27


Letters in Charcoal by Colombian author Irene Vasco, Mexican illustrator Juan Palomino, and translator Lawrence Schimel about a young girl who learns to read using charcoal from her cooking fire, a story inspired by Irene’s work teaching literacy in remote Colombian villages. We are introduced to sign language in Cassie Silva and Frances Ives’ Listening to the Quiet, in which a young girl attempts to come to terms with her mother’s hearing loss, based on the author’s childhood. In My Skin by African-American author Morgan Christie and illustrator Martina Stuhlberger joyfully celebrates identity and belonging, and the possibilities that can open up when you embrace the skin you’re in. Finally, we accompany Rajiv on a journey all the way to the stars as he tries to make sense of his emotions in Rajiv’s Starry Feelings by Niall Moorjani and Nanette Regan.


To learn more about Lantana and their authors, visit: www. lantanapublishing.com. PEN&INC.


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