I'm just home from an interesting evening spent with my friend, Jane Yolen, at a dinner held by the Reading Reptile.  The Reading Reptile is -the- major children's bookstore here in KC, and each year sponsors a national children's literary festival.  Jane is one of the guests.

Despite the fact that I've done some young adult work, notably my DRAGONKIN series, this was like stepping into another world for me.  I was familiar with none of the "big names," other than Jane, of course.  As I browsed among the shelves at the bookstore, I was gratified to see how much science fiction actually was out there for very young ages.  The general consensus among so many fans is that  sf is a graying field and that we're failing to reach new readers.  I'm no longer sure that's true.  We may not be drawing young fans into traditional convention fandom, but there are certainly a lot of young-reader sf books out there, and somebody must be reading them.  And, of course, fantasy for young readers was ubiquitous.

For the locals reading here, there will be book signings tomorrow.  Call the Reading Reptile for the times of those signings.  The signings tonight were massively successful.