Each year, in its role as a book examination center serving Wisconsin librarians and teachers, the CCBC receives review copies of new books published for children and teens from most of the large U.S. trade book publishers, and a number of midsize and smaller trade publishers, most in the U.S., some in Canada, and a few from elsewhere but distributed here. As previously noted, we do not get everything published but believe what we receive represents a significant sampling of books for youth published and available in the United States each year. The books we receive include fictional and informational books in a range of print formats (e.g, picture books, novels, easy readers, poetry, graphic novels, formulaic series, and more).
We get many but not all books from the large corporate publishers (also known as the Big 5); and books from some of the midsize and smaller publishers. We also get some self-published books. We don’t have an accurate estimate of the total number of new books published for children and teens each year (by “new” we mean books that aren’t reprints) because the number can vary depending on what publishers and what kinds of books are counted (e.g, Should every book in a formulaic series be included? Should self-published books be included? Should educational publishing be included?), and there isn’t a complete list of every new book published for children and teens from every publisher against which we can check what we receive.
Percentages calculated from our data apply to the books we received and are best used to convey an overall picture of representation in books published for children and teens, not exact percentages for publishing as a whole.